


Only A Dream Of The Grass Blowing

by Hum My Name (My_Kind_of_Crazy)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthur Pendragon Has Magic (Merlin), Dreams and Nightmares, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Evil Uther Pendragon (Merlin), Execution, First Kiss, Good Morgana (Merlin), Happy Ending, Hurt Merlin (Merlin), Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Kinda, M/M, Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), POV Arthur, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death, there's a bit of a hate to love arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:48:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 53,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26258170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Kind_of_Crazy/pseuds/Hum%20My%20Name
Summary: The dreams begin five days after Merlin’s execution.The dreams— colors and shapes made from the wreckages of Arthur’s memories, as meaningless as words like loyalty and friendship— begin with the gentle questioning of something uncertain of its own right to exist.And Arthur answers the question the only way he can— with his mind turned away from the thoughts that filled him at night, facing the morning with nothing more than a frown and a promise not to think of his dream again.There are more important things to face, anyway. Whatever his father has planned each day, it leaves no room for Arthur to think of petty things like a moment of a bad dream.<>Merlin's a traitor. Merlin's a sorcerer. Merlin's dead and no longer a problem.Or, at least, he would be-- if he hadn't shifted into Arthur's dreams instead. Not a ghost but still not quite there, Merlin fills the place in Arthur's head at night. At first, Arthur does all he can to ignore it. Eventually, though, he has no choice but to speak with the man who broke his trust.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 74
Kudos: 474
Collections: After Camlann Big Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> FINALLY DONE WITH THIS!!! AHHH!!!
> 
> Thank you so much to the mods for hosting this thing! This fic has taken over my life these past few months and it's been so fun to be part of a bigger fandom event!
> 
> Thank you to Kasumi for being SUCH A GOOD ARTIST THE ART IS SO GOOD I CRY. I'm so happy you picked my fic for this, I really appreciate the work you did for it!
> 
> K, (folie_aplusiers), gets a huge shoutout for beta'ing this monster despite being an outsider to the fandom haha. I apologize greatly for continuing to subject you to my random whims and ideas. You are truly the best for putting up with all of it.
> 
> And, finally, thank you to everyone strapping in to read this! You mean the world to me <3
> 
> <><><>
> 
> [LOOK AT THIS GORGEOUS ART](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/721263786408804433/750808920167022732/ACBB_2020.png?width=320&height=422)

The dreams begin five days after Merlin’s execution.

The dreams— colors and shapes made from the wreckages of Arthur’s memories, as meaningless as words like loyalty and friendship— begin with the gentle questioning of something uncertain of its own right to exist.

And Arthur answers the question the only way he can— with his mind turned away from the thoughts that filled him at night, facing the morning with nothing more than a frown and a promise not to think of his dream again.

There are more important things to face, anyway. Whatever his father has planned each day, it leaves no room for Arthur to think of petty things like a moment of a bad dream. 

Training knights. Meeting with the council. Hearing their people beg for help— receiving none unless there’s payment or reward. These are the things that keep Arthur busy.

But they’re not the things that follow him longer than they last.

Arthur walks through the courtyard, back from a brief visit through the town because Uther’s cracked down on magic since he learned how easily it can sneak inside the palace walls. Soaking through the cracks of the bricks, leaking in like shadows through a window— he’s become more paranoid than before. So he sends Arthur to every village that’s close enough to pose a threat, his throat thick with the certainty that no one else could ever get inside again.

No one else could end up like Merlin.

Merlin— damned, stupid and magical Merlin. Five days ago, he’d been caught and killed. Five days ago, he broke the worst law and every bit of Arthur’s heart with it.

Five days ago, he was still here.

Neither Morgana nor Gwen seem willing to let Arthur forget this, as if he ever could. As if he doesn’t pause in the corridors and wonder how everything and nothing can feel the same. Even now, he stops at the steps leading up to the palace. He watches the doors as if expecting a flurry of brown and red and blue to run down to meet him, a familiar face scowling at having been left behind. And Arthur would cuff the back of a dark-haired head, teasing him that he wouldn’t be abandoned if he wasn’t so late waking up.

That’s how it would have been last week, at least.

Now, though, Arthur steps inside alone. He nearly runs into Morgana as he does so. She pauses, takes a step back. Her eyes widen with something Arthur’s been hesitant to name. Of all of them, she’s been the slowest to move on. Her eyes darken, her jaw tightens; she looks just as haunted as she did when she saw Merlin in chains. She still flinches when she sees Arthur or his father, still keeps her silence because— Arthur knows— any words she has would be nothing but treason.

As always, Gwen follows close behind her, but Gwen has her own head turned away. She’d been growing close with Arthur for a few weeks. Now, she can’t seem to look him in the eye.

Morgana and Gwen walk past him without a word, without a thought of another glance. Arthur does the same, eager to escape the aura of their mourning.

Mourning a sorcerer, a liar? Grieving a traitor? Arthur nearly scoffs at the thought. He’d believed he would ache from the absence, that he’d be broken from the execution. Instead, neither pain nor hurt has threatened to appear. Rather, Arthur continues down the halls with a feeling so empty he wonders whether death really can steal someone’s soul— whether it’s by receiving or delivering the killing blow that the soul is lost.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Dinner that night looks like a funeral. 

Morgana, as usual these days, has declined to attend. Something about her feeling ill, something about her nightmares, something about it being in everyone’s best interests for her to remain in her room.

Uther glances at her spot just once, his eyes then fixing on Arthur. 

“Any more of this behavior, and I’ll be forced to speak with Morgana myself,” Uther says with a slight shake of his head, a man considering the surface of a problem and never the depth. “I take it you’ve spoken to her already? She’s always been more inclined to listen to you.”

_ She’ll come around _ , is what Arthur would say if this was a week ago, a month ago.  _ She needs more time. You know how she respects you _ .

Arthur takes a drink of wine, turning his gaze away.

It shouldn’t be so awkward, and he shouldn’t feel so hollow.

And, yet…

Silence spreads across the table like a cloud across the sky. They eat. They drink. They breathe and refuse to look at one another.

It’s Uther who breaks this silence, too. Uther who shatters this small feigned peace.

“You understand why I had to do it,” he says, refusing to make the statement a question. “Having magic so close to the family, so imminent… The boy chose his own fate the moment he stepped into Camelot. I will not apologize for removing a pest from my home.”

Arthur licks his lips. His cup and mouth have long gone dry.

“Of course, father,” he says, though he’s still looking at the edges of his dishes. “You know I’ve never tried to stand in your way of doing what is right.”

“I know,” Uther says. “I’ve raised you well.”

Yes, he has. Raised him to seek out dangers and snuff them out. Raised him to hate magic, to fear it.

Raised him to stand by as his closest friend was dragged to the executioner’s block.

“You should retire for the night,” Uther says, signalling for a servant to come clear their plates. “You’ve seemed tired.”

Any other night, Arthur would argue or make some excuse for his exhaustion. Tonight, though, he stands with a slight nod. The exchanging of good-nights with his father is a blur, already half-forgotten by the time he’s turned and walked into the corridors.

It’s twice as silent in the halls, twice as dark and empty. Arthur’s used to this. He grew up with this. With the quiet and the shadows and the memories of death and execution and—

_ “Arthur.” _

He turns, something in his chest ripping, something spilling out of him as he calls, “Who’s there?”

A whisper, a breath, nothing more than wind brushes over him again.

_ “Arthur.” _

He trembles. He swears, it sounds just like—

As he turns once more, he pauses, eyes caught on a window.

Below him, he can see the courtyard. 

It’s night, now, and the place is flooded with dark, but Arthur’s mind fills in the blanks without him asking for its assistance. 

For a moment, he’s stuck staring at the same scene again.

Gods, how the crowd had collected, thick and angry as blood, around an executioner’s block, their minds already made up about the man forced to his knees before them. His father had raised his hands far above them, voice as cool as any judge and jury and executioner. He’d warned them about magic, about this traitor in their midst. And Arthur had watched, as he watches now— above it all, distanced and held back by the balcony’s height. He’d watched as the crowd moved like one maddened beast, foaming at the mouth for justice to be served for crimes they’ve only heard through whispers and rumors and lies. Watched as others, still, screamed for a different kind of justice, for a mercy Uther could never know. Watched as an ax raised and caught the light of the cruel, hot sun. Watched as it fell, as it danced through the air, as it collapsed and—

Arthur shuts his eyes, something he hadn’t done when this memory was reality.

It’s a guard that pulls him from it moments later, a hand barely brushing the fabric of his sleeve.

“Sire?” He asks. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Arthur says, surprised he still has the ability to speak. “Yes, sorry, I was just lost in my thoughts.”

The guard nods, satisfied with the answer. When he turns away, Arthur pulls back and continues his way to his bedroom. He doesn’t look out any more windows as he goes.

In his room, Arthur thinks of his tasks for the next day— what training routine he’ll use, what knights he’ll speak with, what meetings his father has planned. Some servant he’ll never know the name of dresses him for bed with hurried but certain movements, eyes always down.

Arthur doesn’t think of how Merlin’s eyes were always up at his. He doesn’t wonder how he never noticed any golden glow from someone so bold.

He doesn’t think about this. He doesn’t wonder about that.

He doesn’t let himself recognize the small pit of regret curling in his gut.

In bed, Arthur allows his tiredness to wash over him, heavy enough for all his thoughts to be slow and useless. 

Though, as he shuts his eyes, the memory presses in again.

Arthur lifts it once, considering the details. Then, he drops it into the back of his mind. 

There’s no use in thinking of that now.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

_ Arthur opens his eyes to find the middle of another dream. _

_ It’s a small thing, barely worth remembering. Grass against the back of his neck, brushing softly with the help of some warm breeze. The sky’s an expanse of blue as wide and as deep as a lake, clouds rippling over the sun.  _

_ He presses his hands into the grass beneath him. He breathes deeply, the air tasting of smoke and rain. _

_ The grass under his neck tickles with sharp blades, and he turns his head. A forest greets him in the distance, empty but for trees and shadows and wind. It’s on the edge of this meadow, this place that cradles Arthur with all the tenderness of a mother holding her firstborn. _

_ And Arthur presses back into it, smiling as the sun warms his skin. Slowly, his other senses fade in. The grass rustles with the sound of the breeze tugging through each blade, like a creature scuttling through the bushes and trees. His next breath is more than that fire and storm flavor; it’s the sweetness of flowers not yet seen, the pull of dust and dirt upon his tongue. His world is nothing but the clouds, the sky, the earth pressed against his back. _

_ Arthur welcomes it all as if he’s been here a thousand times before. _

_ When Arthur breathes, it tastes of bliss. It fills him with a calm and safety he’s only ever felt when he’s held his own sword in battle, knowing only he holds his life in his hands. This place feels like that, and more. _

_ As clouds shift and pull across the everblue sky, Arthur finds himself rising. He sits up, slowly, and the meadow comes into greater focus around him.  _

_ The meadow, and the figure standing in the distance. _

_ It’s a small shadow of a person, too far to be known but too close to be ignored. Their back is to Arthur, and he watches as they, too, sit, their fingers caressing the petals of the flowers beside them. _

_ Too far to call out to; too close to turn away from. _

_ The figure looks to the sky. The sun dances across thick black hair. _

_ “Arthur.” _

_ A whisper, a breath, a ghost within the wind. _

_ Arthur dares not breathe, dares not move. _

_ Like him, the figure is still. And the whisper comes not from this stranger, but from the very air touching Arthur’s skin. _

_ “Arthur.” _

_ His name cuts into this place, an intruder and a fiend. The air grows cold in his mouth, in his lungs.  _

_ The figure before him begins to turn.  _

_ “Arthur.” _

_ And a cloud passes over the sun, locking away the sky and light. Nothing more is left to be seen. _

_ <><><> <><><> <><><> _

_ How many times has Arthur had the same dream? Should it be stranger that it reappears? Or is it worse for the subtle changes from night to night? _

_ This time, Arthur stands in the field. His trousers are rolled up nearly to his knees, the sun warming his skin and the grass tickling his ankles, his bare feet. _

_ In the distance, the figure is closer than before. _

_ Arthur keeps still. He knows not whether this is his own choice or whether something in this dream is pressing against him, holding him in place.  _

_ The figure turns. The sun blocks Arthur from fully seeing their face. _

_ “Arthur.” _

_ The softest of chills travels down Arthur’s spine, like water dripping from the back of his neck. His neck aches to turn away, and his eyes burn as though glancing at something forbidden by his own mind. _

_ “Arthur.” _

_ Still, that whisper remains. _

_ That whisper, and some piece of Arthur left unnamed. _

_ As if shifting slowly from stone to man, Arthur’s arm bends. His hand presses over his chest. His heart beats, and the feeling nearly shocks him. With the terrifying, ripping sense of loss tearing at his skin, he’d almost feared his own heart wouldn’t be there. _

_ It scares him, this piece of him missing like breath from his lungs, like blood from his veins. Something tugs like hands at his throat, tying into a knot so tight he can barely make a sound other than the whistle of breath when he sighs. _

_ When the figure in the distance raises a steady arm, fingers spread wide and palm facing Arthur with a confidence that fills the air, Arthur finds all he can do is turn away. _

_ “Arthur.” _

_ “No,” he answers, his throat as wrecked as if he’d been screaming. “I can’t hear you.” _

_ “Arthur.” _

_ Arthur shuts his eyes so tight it hurts. Yet, even in the dark, his world is nothing but the voice whispering his name.  _

_ “No!” He shouts. _

_ He falls to his knees. He covers his ears. _

_ “Arthur, please.” _

When Arthur wakes, it’s with a traitor’s name on his lips.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Each day comes with a dizzying blur, a weight and a deafening roar each time he snaps awake. 

Each night greets him with a nameless voice, a dream the same as the one before. Grass against his ankles, wind across his flesh.

A figure with the sun against their face.

And, through it all, his name in a whisper as certain as a steady line of smoke.

_ “Arthur.” _

Arthur wakes each night before his own lips can form a response.

In the moments between morning and day, it’s easier to see these visions for what they are. Nightmares plagued by guilt, curses in the form of a man he refuses to see.

Still, knowing doesn’t steal away the sting. No matter the cause or logic, it’s still a blade to his throat when he shuts his eyes, opening them to the sound of his own name.

He tells no one of these things.

“Come on, men, we’re losing daylight.”

And, so, training with his knights becomes tougher. 

It’d been halfway through the first week that Arthur had realized he could cut away his dreams with longer training sessions, with harsher work-outs and protocols. Hours in the practice field with his men, fighting with dull swords until he ached— until he burned, until he felt as though he could bleed.

Such bone-deep weariness has only time to drag him into a darkness that lasts him through the night.

His father watches today, standing to the side with his mouth in a stern line and his arms folded neatly over his chest. Arthur nods to him once, his stomach tightening at his presence.

“Father,” he says as the knights prepare their armor and swords.

Uther nods in return, his gaze sweeping over the field of newer knights, young men with bright eyes and untouched smiles. In the distance, Arthur can hear their chatter.

“I’ve heard good reports on your training recently,” Uther says, his eyes still focused on some point past Arthur. “I wanted to see it for myself.”

It’s a compliment, almost, and Arthur looks to the side with half a shrug. “You’ve heard complaints, more like. I know some of the younger men have been filling Gaius’ room more often than they should.”

It’s at this that Uther’s gaze turns to him, as sharp and unyielding as any blade. 

“You’re pushing them to be better for the sake of the kingdom. Their childish concerns mean little when compared to that.” Again, Uther looks away, nodding to himself. “You train them harshly, true, but I assure you they’ll respect you for it, all the same. Most already do.”

Arthur nods, turning away as his father raises a hand in dismissal.

His father speaks of respect but Arthur still feels as though the knights see through him as he declares their orders for the day. 

After all, how can Camelot’s knights respect a man who’d been betrayed by the one person he dared to call a friend?

These thoughts last only long enough for the men to pair off in sparring partners, ordered to fight until Arthur gives the order to stop. It’s a training regime that leads to chipped swords and cracked shields as easily as it leads to battle ready men and stronger knights.

“Are you ready, sire?” Leon, one of the few senior knights present, asks Arthur. 

Arthur dips his head with a sharp jerking motion. He raises his blade.

Around him, men yell; the fighting begins.

It’s a delicate dance Arthur barely thinks of, advancing and cutting and tearing air apart with his sword until his shoulders ache. Leon gives as good as he gets, face hard as he blocks Arthur’s attack, on the defense too soon.

But Arthur’s been trained to kill since birth. This is all that should be expected from him.

Blades clash together, a ringing noise that pierces Arthur’s ears. Sweat collects on his brow. His throat burns with ragged breaths pulled from his lungs.

Block. Strike. Strike. Forward. Back.

Leon twists beneath Arthur’s next attack, turning at the last second. Arthur stumbles as he strikes the air, his feet flimsy beneath him for only a second before he’s facing Leon again and—

And Leon’s pulling his blade down, the dulled edge aimed for Arthur’s shoulder and chest. There’s room for Arthur to duck to the side, to raise his shield in defense and take advantage of Leon’s attack tugging him forward. He’d kick Leon in the back of the knees, bring him to the ground, place his sword against his chest and then call for this to begin again.

It’d be easy. It’d be simple.

But that blade is still falling and suddenly Arthur can only see a sharpened edge. 

Time constricts around his throat, and he’s back in that place, that moment, where he’s both awake and asleep, in that second where there’d been blood soaking his shirt, weighing the fabric against his skin. He’s back in that one heartbeat, that horrible minute— and Merlin had been over him, his hands as red and sticky as Arthur’s wound. And Arthur’s frozen to the spot just as he’d been then, his eyes failing to fully open, his mouth failing to move, as Merlin pressed his palms to the cut, to the blood and broken skin, and spoke words in a language only a traitor should ever speak. 

The memory’s an endless stain of red as Arthur struggles to breathe, struggles to see past the way the doors had opened, the way his father— and, gods, his father across the field, his eyes as cold as they’d been that night— had, too, spoken things Arthur swore he misheard, swore were lies. Things like treason and magic and betrayal— and those things made little sense when they words somehow spoken about the wide-eyed servant crying Arthur’s name. 

But then there was that flash of gold, that blinding light, and sense was lost, logic was stolen, anything but the impossible ceased to exist and—

And Leon’s blade comes down, hard. It strikes the scar where Merlin’s hands had been, the force of it enough to bring Arthur down, despite the dulled edge.

His shoulder stings, a reminder of how recent those memories truly are.

“Sire!” Leon drops his blade, and others do the same. Knights turn towards Arthur, their eyes glancing at one another and then back at him as if uncertain what to do now that their leader’s been brought to his knees.

“Good blow, Leon,” Arthur says, forcing something like cheeriness into his voice, the sound mangled by his gritted teeth. “Seems I still have much I could learn from you.”

Another knight— a younger one with brown curls and freckled skin— steps forward to help Arthur to his feet again.

Arthur only recognizes him as one of the guards who’d pulled Merlin away from the bed with rough hands and the promise of blood if he struggled. He recognizes him as one of the many Merlin had tossed aside with simply a thought, golden eyes sticking to Arthur’s bleeding skin.

Thoughts and memories and past and present collide again and again.

Arthur reaches for his fallen sword, wincing when it aggravates his shoulder. There’ll be a nasty bruise there, he knows.

So do the others.

“You should see Gaius about that shoulder, sire,” the young knight says, failing to meet Arthur’s eyes. “Especially considering you’ve already been hurt there once this month.”

Arthur pulls away, muscles tight. “If you think you’ll get out of training this easily—”

“I can run your routines until you return,” Leon cuts in, balancing his interruption with a brief bowing of his head. The knights gathered around them nod and murmur their assent. 

Arthur could argue— could throw up a fit like usual, could stand his ground and remind that what he says goes— but his arm’s already started tingling from the blow, his fingers twitching helplessly at his side. 

He grunts, the biggest protest he can provide, before nodding and passing the rest of his instructions to Leon. 

He drags his feet on the way to Gaius’ chambers, kicking up dust as if stalling can change the day to night— can give him reason to turn away before ending up  _ there _ .

Because it’s been weeks since he’s been there, since he’s surrounded himself with the scent and stench of herbs and potions, of those books that Gaius likes to read. It’s been weeks since Arthur’s had reason to look into that emptied place, to see that too big table, the extra spaces left behind. The person-shaped gap in the spot next to Gaius— Arthur’s forced himself not to see.

But, then, Gaius’ door is before him and Arthur feels like a man on the edge of battle.

He nearly knocks, nearly clears his throat, nearly turns away. But he’s a prince and he’s innocent of any wrongs, and so—

“Sire?” Gaius lifts his head, his hands still slowly crushing some flower stems into a bowl. He moves as though he’s only been alloted so much energy for that day, as if too much strain will lead him to collapse. Arthur makes a note of hiring a new apprentice for him, someone to help. Someone to fill that empty room. “Your arm again, I suppose?”

Arthur’s long accepted the fact that Gaius can tell an injury with so much as a glance and, so, he nods again.

“Should just be bruising,” he says. “I’ll only take a salve and be gone.”

His voice sounds wrong here. It sounds wrong and heavy and off in his own ears, too bright for such a dull place.

Gaius nods, setting his tools down and turning towards the shelves. For the first time, Arthur wonders how he manages to do any of this on his own.

“We’ve had interest from the towns. Young boys and girls who’d like to take a role under you as an assistant.” So long as there’s this horrid space, this place that reeks of abandonment and crushes Arthur with betrayal, he will fill it with his words, as awful as they are. “I imagine my father will allow you to choose your favorite fit. We can have someone else here before the end of the week.”

Arthur would like to say that Gaius’ hands still, but they shake far too much for him to ever make that mistake.

A moment— two.

Gaius is silent as he faces Arthur once more, walking over to press a small bottle of paste into his hands. He holds back anything he may wish to say; his eyes face the ground, his cheeks a sickly shade of white.

Arthur has seen the fathers of knights who’ve come home from war on the back of a cart, a sheet over their faces. He’s seen the mothers of children too sick to make it through the winter months.

He’s seen parents in mourning. This is the first time he’s seen it from someone he knows so well.

“If that will be all, sire,” Gaius says, his voice barely enough to be called a whisper.

It’s a dismissal and it strikes Arthur deeper than he knows it should. 

_ I was a son to you, once  _ he wants to say.  _ Do you recall how you raised and cared for me? _

Every cut and scrape and bruise and scar— Gaius would sit Arthur down by his workbench and tug his shirt or trousers away from the skin, tutting and scolding him for being so rough. Cooling salve around the blood or broken flesh, Gaius’ fingers sure as they worked the medicine in. And Arthur would complain but say it was alright, that it’s the mark of a warrior and not a fool. He’d make light of his wounds and Gaius would shake his head— fond, always fond— before sending him away with something he’d pretend was a tonic to help him heal but, really, was just sugar and water and mashed up fruit.

Is it so easy to forget that Arthur once called Gaius his uncle, too?

Arthur tucks his heart further back behind his ribs. Merlin had begged for Gaius’ innocence as guards filled his cell and demanded to know who’d been hiding his secret for him. Gaius may have been left alone but Arthur knows Merlin’s insistence had hidden only more lies.

_ “You can take me, I don’t care, but leave Gaius out of this _ ,” Merlin had cried. Arthur had heard him from further down the dungeon, too cowardly to step closer to see his face.  _ “I acted alone, I swear.” _

Arthur just barely keeps from shaking his head violently in an attempt to dislodge that damned voice from his mind. Broken and pleading and so  _ sad _ … Just like…

“One more thing, actually,” he says, almost feeling bad for asking for more. “The sleeping draught you make for Morgana’s dreams— does it work?”

Gaius raises an eyebrow. He takes half a step back.

“Have you been suffering from nightmares?” He asks, and there’s almost an accusation in there, almost a diagnosis that Arthur has only himself to blame for.

Arthur shakes his head.

“Only dreams,” he says. “But I’d very much like to make them go away for good.”

Gaius watches him a second longer as if awaiting further explanation. 

Arthur turns his gaze away, facing the window across the room. 

Outside, clouds gather like troops lining across the sky. Still, Arthur sees only the empty blue that sits above him whenever he closes his eyes to dream.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Watching the sun sink below the city’s edge. Watching the potion stick in thick clumps to the edge of a small glass vial. Gaius had promised that half of this would rid him of his nightmares for the night. Just a small dose to test; just a bit to make sure he doesn’t want to dream.

Gods, Arthur doesn’t want to dream. As darkness slips into the room with all its age-old knowledge of things that happen at night, Arthur doesn’t dare to even close his eyes.

It’s silly, this fear. He knows it’s out of place for a prince to be afraid of his own head. What would the people think if he couldn’t escape his own mind? What would his father say?

Arthur’s grip on the vial tightens. He doesn’t want to be afraid but, more than that, he doesn’t want to see that figure again. He doesn’t want to hear that voice.

Even now, the thoughts and memories of such things are a dark hole he’s standing on the edge of, unable to move forward or back. He’s hovering over something terrible, something endless. And, if he peers in, he feels sick at what he knows he’ll see.

The sun sinks lower. The sky grows darker. Arthur feels exhaustion tugging with cold hands around his soul.

In the back of his head, that haunted voice calls his name but it’s more desperate than before. It’s a whisper in the shape of a shout, an echo of a voice that screamed for him, that cried for him— a voice dragged down the halls, chained and threatened and bruised. And he can see the face of the figure calling him, the wide blue eyes and the tear-stained cheeks, the terror twisting Arthur’s name into something awful, something like a beg, and Arthur sees himself walking away, turning away, leaving that voice and that face in the dungeons and—

And it’s a wound that reopens with each whisper of his name in the back of his mind. It’s blood on his hands in the form of a face he can’t forget.

Arthur lifts the vial to his lips and drinks Gaius’ draught. He can’t ever look back into that hole. To be a king, he must be better. To be a king, he must forget such meaningless things and move on. His father would tell him that, to become history, he must forget history— remember only what he’s taught, never what he’s truly seen. 

Gaius’ potion is thick and it tastes like smoke, burnt herbs and something ashy on his tongue and throat. 

And it works. 

That night, Arthur doesn’t have nightmares.

Trapped in his mind, eyes flashing beneath his eyelids. No one to wake him, no one to see the way he shudders.

Arthur has no nightmares.

But he still has dreams.


	2. Chapter 2

The figure from before no longer stands in the distance, blurred enough to convince Arthur he’s making things up. He’s a clear image, sitting in the grass somewhere past a bit of dirt and rocks, head tilted up to face the sky, feeling a warmth Arthur’s yet to know.

The air is more silent than it’s ever been, and Arthur tries to slow his own breath if only to keep from drawing attention to himself. There’s an ease to this figure, the sort of ease that comes with knowing where you are. The grass reaches to this person’s wrists, brushing with all the gentleness of familiarity.

When Arthur finally takes a step forward, the action jerky and forced by the welling frustration in his gut, it’s as if the ground shies away from him. He stumbles into his next step, rocks and small holes appearing as if to block him from this person in the distance, as if to warn Arthur to do what he’s always done— stay where he is, refuse to move a muscle. Wake in the morning and pretend this never was.

But, somehow, he still tastes Gaius’ potion on his lips, and staying still doesn’t seem like such a valid option anymore.

As he draws nearer, more details come into view. The way the sun soaks into this person’s skin, the sound of their soft sighs as they feel something more than the numbness aching through Arthur’s bones. He sees the way their hair trembles from the smallest breeze, the way it brushes their ears and the back of their neck.

He sees how their sleeves are pushed up. He sees a ring of bruises around two pale wrists.

And Arthur stops, caught like a prisoner in chains he’s pulled too tight. His lungs become dungeon cells, confining his air as this dream confines him— stuck here with this specter, this nightmare, this ghost. He can’t bring himself to move back; he can’t bring himself to move away.

For a moment, he forgets how to blink, and all is horribly still once more.

And, then—

The person— a man with a low voice that rumbles through the air as easily as wind— speaks.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he says, though there’s no accusation in the sound. “Why?”

Arthur’s breath releases only to catch once more in his throat, daring to suffocate him and any words he might have. 

He doesn’t dare to move, doesn’t dare to react to the voice he hears.

Because the voice behind the figure is so much worse than what he’s seen. So much worse than bruises on wrists or that shade of black hair, because any of those can just be an image. Any of those can just be a memory.

But that voice— that voice speaking things he hasn’t heard before, that voice in a tone that’s almost sad…

That voice stills him with all the power he doesn’t want to admit it has.

“You’re only a dream,” Arthur says, and his voice is as wrecked as a forest in a storm.

The figure turns, still seated on the ground. The figure laughs.

Merlin looks back up at Arthur with a smile as familiar as his favorite blade.

“Am I?” Merlin speaks, and his voice grips Arthur like an animal it’s about to spear. He’s caught; he’s stuck. “That may just be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Merlin stands like he’s unfurling from the ground, one bone at a time as he pushes himself to his feet. It’s time for Arthur to run, to shake himself awake, but Merlin is standing before him and Arthur’s forgotten what it’s like to be the reflection in those sky-blue eyes.

Silence pulls tight between them. Arthur feels it in his chest. When Merlin clears his throat, Arthur feels that, too.

“As kind as it is for you to say that I’m worthy of being in your dreams, we both know that’s not true,” Merlin says. “Why, after all, would you dream about me, Arthur?”

Arthur’s world narrows down to only this field, this dream, this half-insane conversation with a thing inside his mind.

“Guilt,” he says, the word torn from him as if on a hook. “Misplaced sentiment. Or perhaps you just cursed me before you left.”

Merlin’s smile falters but only in a way that proves it was never a real smile to begin with.

“What would you say to me?” He asks. “If this was just a dream, nothing more?”

Merlin watches him as if he has any right to this soft tone of his, to the way he holds Arthur’s eyes with his own. He watches Arthur like Arthur’s the one in exile, the one on trial— like Arthur’s the one who wronged him.

And words flash through Arthur’s mind at Merlin’s question, words that have circled through his skull ever since he saw Merlin dragged away in chains. These words press to his tongue with fire and smoke, scorn and anger and pain; he swallows them down, his hands forming fists at his sides. If he starts with those, he’ll never stop.

“I’d say that you were an idiot,” he says, and it’s not quite as harsh as he had meant for it to be.

It’s enough, though, for Merlin to jerk back, his eyes widening just a bit, before the corner of his mouth sharpens into something that’s almost fond.

“Of course you’d say that,” he says, the words slow and testing the space between them. “Your vocabulary truly knows no limits.”

The smile comes unbidden on Arthur’s face, pulled forward by a call in Merlin’s words. Arthur tries to bite it back but it’s too late, sticking to his lips with a tight kind of pain. 

It’s a small smile. It’s soft. It’s barely there.

It’s still too much.

When Arthur shuts his eyes, he can still see light through his eyelids, sun and sky and Merlin’s grin. He shuts them tighter. He wishes he had the strength to back away.

He’ll have to ask Gaius for a stronger draught. Or maybe he’ll just knock himself over the head and hope that ruins his ability to dream forever.

“What are you thinking?” Merlin asks. Quiet. Tender. Gentle.

Arthur daren’t open his eyes, almost afraid of what he may see.

“You mean to tell me you don’t know?” He snaps. 

He hears Merlin sigh. He feels wind against his face.

“I’m not really a dream.”

Merlin says it like a timid confession. As if, after everything,  _ this  _ is what he has to confess to.

This time, Arthur lets the silence grow. Like a wall dropping a brick between them with each horrid second, Arthur basks in the quiet. He allows his mind to drift away from Merlin’s words, from his pretend presence. Let Merlin be the one in the stillness, for once. Let him worry over what comes next.

And, what comes next, is a question that Arthur should not be afraid to ask.

“You asked me what I would say if you were a dream,” he says. “But what would you say if you were real?”

“Easy,” Merlin says on a shuddering breath. “I’d call you a prat.”

Arthur’s eyes open in time to see Merlin’s curving smile. It’s not a smile he likes to see on Merlin, too gentle to truly be real— too sad to ever fit with the grand things he says. How long has Merlin stored that smile in the back of his mind, hiding even this from Arthur’s sight? Chills and heat both fall over Arthur’s skin. Had he ever known Merlin, at all?

“Then,” Merlin continues, unaware of Arthur’s thoughts, “I’d tell you that I’m here to keep you safe, the way I always have. But I can’t tell you that until I know you’ll truly listen.”

Arthur— a Pendragon, a man whose hunted magic all his life— stares back at the friend who betrayed him with that very thing, the man of lies and sorcery.

The air grows hot and cold, fire and ice, secrets and truth.

And Arthur feels he may drown in the extremes in which he lives.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur doesn’t speak about dreams come morning, but that doesn’t stop them from invading even his waking mind. The images and words circle through his head like birds seeking prey— asking him to fall to his knees, to listen, to hold his tongue, to hide these things in his mind’s darkest corners so no one can see how insane their prince has become. What would happen if he let these foolish phrases slip so carelessly from his lips? How weak would his kingdom be?

Some new servant— some light-haired boy with two or three summers left before he becomes a man— fumbles with Arthur’s training gear as he puts it on him, his lips moving quickly as he tries to update Arthur on whatever messages his knights or father have given him. Arthur barely listens, barely helps the boy as he does his work. Instead, he recites random laws within his mind, the way he did when he was young and learning; better this than wondering how this servant can help him without touching him— if Merlin was truly that incompetent or if Arthur had simply never warned about touching a prince.

It’s easy, too, to think he’s doing an alright job at hiding the voices and dreams inside his head. But he’s a prince and there are always eyes in the background, always whispers about him.

“—think, and— and, sire?” The boy steps back, the last of the gear on. His eyebrows furrow and his gaze drops when Arthur looks at him. It’d be easy to blame it on the sun beaming down upon the training fields but Arthur’s not one to enjoy lying to himself. “Did, uh, did you hear me? Are you listening?”

_ “I can’t tell you that until I know you’ll truly listen.” _

Arthur scowls, dark and twisted, and pulls from the boy with more force than he knows he needs.

“You should know better than to question your prince,” he snaps, only feeling slightly guilty when the boy flinches. “Go on. I’m sure you have other tasks elsewhere.”

The boy all but sprints to get away from Arthur.

Further down the field, the knights gather and whisper to each other. The rumors and gossip about the latest execution died down a bit ago; such things don’t often last longer than a few days, fear of association with a sorcerer choking out any curiosity or interest. So, with nothing else to whisper about, they’ve begun to whisper about Arthur.

Arthur’s frown deepens. He hadn’t planned on going easy on them today but he hadn’t wanted to be harsh, either. Still, if they want to pretend their prince is foolish enough not to hear their gossip, he’ll prove them wrong. Perhaps he’ll extend the training, take them into the day’s heat rather than give them rest. Perhaps he’ll humiliate the younger boys, have them spar against the older knights just so he can stand on the side and point out their poor footing. 

Arthur shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips, waiting for the group to come to him or to, at least, fall into position without being asked. With his eyes on the grass below him— good grass, simple grass, nothing at all like the blades in his dreams— he counts to five, tension easing when he hears the telltale rustle of knights rushing into their lines.

But when he looks up, it’s not the knights he sees first.

On the other side of the field, a barely there vision. Merlin stands with his hands hanging loosely at his sides, his eyes on Arthur. A wind that doesn’t exist plays with his hair, cooling his ruddy cheeks as he squints beneath the sun. His lips move as though speaking; Arthur can’t hear a word.

Arthur can barely breathe, taking half a step back as though preparing to run. 

This image— this vision, this waking dream— is a parody memory, a ghost without the smile Merlin so often wore when he stood there, when he watched the knights and prepared his witty remarks every time Arthur needed a towel or drink. He should be crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow, watching as Arthur follows through on his threats about really making the knights work this time. He should be laughing at a joke Gwen would say, standing beside him when she’s done with her tasks. He should be breathing, not just standing there like some painted thing.

“Sire?” And then there’s Leon’s hand on his shoulder, Leon blocking the image from sight. “Is everything okay?”

All at once, blood rushes into Arthur’s face, his pulse pounding through his ears as he realizes with a sudden blink just how long he’d been standing there. Long enough that the knights have started exchanging strange glances with each other, Leon tossing scolding looks towards the stupid ones making comments under their breath. 

“I’m fine.” Arthur steps back, taking his sword from a nearby servant. It’s a dulled one, only used with close combat training, but the weight is a soothing presence when he wraps his hand around the hilt. “Get back in formation. We’ll begin soon.”

Leon nods and listens, but not without another worrying glance across Arthur’s face. If he has any thoughts about what he sees, he says nothing.

“Alright,” Arthur calls. “We’ll begin again with the exercises from yesterday.”

The knights pair off. Arthur joins them.

Across the field, a vision stands— as silent and as horrible as any ghost. He watches Arthur like it only matters that Arthur sees him, like it only matters that Arthur knows he’s there.

Arthur tightens his jaw and swings his blade down over the image.

By the time the sword has fallen, Merlin is gone.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

For a moment, when he’s alone in his room and the day is close to pretending it’s done, Arthur refuses to answer the knocking on his door. 

“Tell my father I’ll be with him soon enough,” he calls, running his hand through his hair and scowling at the sticky sweat at his scalp. He’d just returned from a patrol less than an hour ago and the sun hadn’t been as gentle as the one in his dreams— punishing him for expecting a fantasy to be true. 

The servant outside his door murmurs a response and then leaves, their footsteps barely heard over his own heavy breaths. 

It’s just dinner with his father and Morgana. Just an evening sitting across from two people who’ll be watching him with the same levels of disappointment in their eyes— though, he supposes, they’ll have different reasons.

His father sent a messenger earlier today with the message that meals will now be shared together, mandatory as of tonight. To prove that they’re unified, that they’re a family of sorts. To prove that they all stand for the same things.

Arthur feels bile in the back of his throat. His father’s known about Morgana’s disdain for a while; it’d be hard to ignore her scowls each time they pass in the hall. But Arthur’s been able to avoid her hateful gaze, the twist of betrayal on her lips. He’d been able to turn away. He’d imagined Uther would want to do the same.

Though, perhaps, he’s become more aware of Arthur’s melancholy than his ward’s disgust. As Arthur thinks back to recent interactions with his father, he scowls at the likelihood of the thought.

When he’d returned from patrol, face red from heat and heads full of thoughts about dreams, his father had watched him with the same eyes he’d worn when Arthur had once returned with an antidote for Merlin’s poison.

It’s almost fitting, it seems. Seeing how that was the moment his heart unlocked from its noble cage and pinned itself to his sleeve, no matter how short that time had been.

Before Merlin, Arthur had always known which masks to fit on his face for which occasion— how to hide disagreement with his father or how to shove away his fear for friends he shouldn’t have. He’d surrounded himself with boys happy to agree with his every word, never looking for anything more than the prince’s approval. Bravado and intimidation— courage and nothing more, no matter how easily afraid he’d grow for Morgana or the people in his kingdom. A prince couldn’t show concern. A prince couldn’t care.

And then came Merlin, this bumbling country fool. Calling him names and looking into his eyes without fear. And those eyes, damn those eyes. Merlin came from a village of dust and farming and dirt but when Arthur looked into those eyes he swore he could smell the sea.

Merlin always knew what to do, what to say. He’d press at the prince until he wasn’t a prince at all— until he was lashing out in every emotion he didn’t know could fit to his skin. Merlin could drag out every thought from the back of Arthur’s mind as though he could see it clear as day on his face.

He wonders, traitorously, what Merlin would say to him now. If he was still here. If he wasn’t the problem— would Merlin tell him a prince is allowed to mourn?

Arthur looks at the sky outside his window. He thinks of sympathetic blue eyes. He thinks of ocean waves and a gentle sun.

Then those eyes burn gold and all he smells is smoke.

Arthur jerks his gaze away from the window, that bitterness from before flooding his mouth as he turns to the door. He’s not clean from the patrol nor is he well-rested enough to put up with Morgana’s cold stares or his father’s expectant eyes.

No matter. 

Let the people outside these walls expect a prince. His family, for once, can just put up with  _ him _ . And, besides, it’s not as if he’s the only one in the room with nightmares or secrets or flaws. He’s just been taught to hide them better; perhaps, one day, he’ll learn not to feel them at all.

With these thoughts sharpening against his skull with an aching scratch, he steps into the hallway. And, with each step, he feels himself walking further away from the voice and words inside his dreams.

In the back of his mind, waves crash.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur keeps his eyes low as he eats, his fingers running around the rim of his glass as his father speaks of recent movement in the forest near the outer villages. He says they don’t know who’s been travelling but they seem to be making their way here.

Arthur doesn’t pay as close attention as he might have, only listening for the moments where he should nod or agree with whatever Uther says. 

Across from him, Morgana’s eyes flicker like a candle— at him, and then away. Arthur doesn’t hold her gaze for longer than a moment. Though Uther may be feigning cheeriness, Arthur’s less likely to pretend.

“— hunting may do you some good,” Uther says, looking at Arthur with that ever present look of sympathy and disappointment. The sympathy’s a newer addition— something appearing sometime after Merlin’s arrest— but it seems to be more an act to cover his own embarrassment for appointing Merlin in such a close position to Arthur in the first place. “Perhaps it’ll clear your head. You’ve seemed distracted recently.”

Fresh tides of fear and panic fill Arthur’s mind as his eyes turn towards his father, his mouth drying at his words. 

“My apologies, I’ve not been sleeping well.” 

That’s innocent enough, isn’t it? No way for his father to know of the sorcerer seeming to dwell within his head, no way for him to know of how he dreams of Merlin.

His father hums, looking away as a guard nears the table, his gaze on Uther.

“Lack of sleep cannot be an excuse for inattention,” he says, beckoning the guard closer. “If you’re having such troubles, speak with Gaius for a remedy. I won’t be hearing any more of your wandering mind while you’re training the knights.”

Morgana snorts into her wine, though Arthur can’t guess at which part she’s laughing at. Uther’s coldness? Arthur’s scolded expression? The pretense that any of this feels as normal as it would have a month ago?

When Arthur makes the mistake of looking at her, there are no answers in her eyes— only blame. The same blame she’s worn since storming away from Arthur the day of Merlin’s execution, her voice raw from screaming and her sleeves wrinkled from the hands of guards who’d had to drag her from the dungeons. She’d stood in front of Merlin’s cell in her darkest gown— a gown for mourning, for grief— and refused to move, shouting for a fair trial or a kinder sentence. Uther had ordered her to be locked in her rooms— cursed, he’d called her, enchanted by Merlin’s magic. Arthur had visited her that day, neither seeking or offering comfort.

She’d hit him and told him she’d be happier to see him and Uther in Merlin’s place. He’d told her that was treason. Gwen had appeared, escorted him out. 

Neither of them had truly spoken to him since. Not the way they used to, with teasing ease and familiar fondness. Now, they’re nothing but strangers.

Uther leaves with the guard, discussing a recently arrested sorcerer in low tones. Perhaps they’re talking about means of execution. Perhaps the boy escaped. Arthur’s gut twists either way. 

The light in Morgana’s eyes flickers once more. She’s never been the best at truly hiding her emotions behind any royal mask. 

A young girl with long brown hair moves forward at one of Morgana’s gestures, taking her dishes away with a slight bow. She’s shorter than Gwen, and her cheeks tinge red when she accidentally meets Arthur’s eyes.

“Where’s Guinevere?” He asks, not meaning to shatter the silence and wincing at the shards of its brokenness. “Is she alright?”

Before the question’s fully asked, he already knows he’s made a mistake. Morgana’s eyes harden. Her lips twist into an ugly scowl. The room floods with tension thick enough to strangle Arthur’s attempts to take the words back.

“She’s not been feeling well. I told her to get some sleep. Rest should do her good.” Simple words from Morgana but Arthur knows her well enough to prepare for whatever cruelty she has next. Sure enough, she almost smirks— almost, if not for the hurt in her eyes and the white-knuckled fist resting on the table— and tilts her head as she considers Arthur. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand the concept of caring for your friends. You just chop their heads off.”

And Arthur had been prepared— had thought himself prepared— for the barbs and blades of Morgana’s words. He’d known she’d been thinking of it, knows she only sees him now as bloodstained and guilty, but to hear the accusation so plainly. To hear her speak it like a challenge, like a threat, like Arthur doesn’t see that same scene every time he shuts his eyes—

And even now it’s like he’s back there, like he’s standing above the courtyard with some unnamed emotion tied tight around his throat. His stomach twists the same way it did then, his chest aching as he holds back words that beg for this to stop— to cry that there’s been a mistake, to bring this foolishness to an end. And he can see the way Merlin had bent over the executioner’s block, his hands tied behind his back with a rope too coarse for his wrists. The wind had howled, had screamed, had pulled at Merlin’s hair and clothes as if to protect him— and, gods, Uther had only seen that as further proof of his sorcery, hadn’t he? Urging the executioner to move along, to force Merlin back down even as he knelt without speaking back. And Arthur had been certain that it couldn’t be Merlin because Merlin always had a witty remark, always had the last word. And he can see the way Merlin’s shoulders had tensed as Uther gave the command—

He can see the way the ax caught the glare of the sun as it fell.

“You,” Arthur says to Morgana, his voice tight and shaking, “have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Eyes that used to calm him best now take on a darker gleam, staring at Arthur as if they can see into his heart— as if they’re disgusted by what they find.

“I know you gave the order for the beheading,” Morgana says. 

“Would you rather have seen him burn?” Arthur tries to keep his voice low, his emotions in check, but Morgana’s pushing at him in every way she knows will hurt. He leans forward, trying to whisper and knowing it just sounds broken; for once, Morgana’s eyes are filled with something other than blame, curiosity taking the space as Arthur speaks for only the two of them to hear. “He would have  _ burned,  _ Morgana. He would have been tied to some damned stake and made into a spectacle, exactly as my father prefers it. I couldn’t save him but I could protect him from that. A… A beheading was the kindest thing I could have done.”

And, all at once, Morgana’s eyes are distant once more. She stands with all the restrained fury of a flame on the edge of a candle, eyeing every flammable thing around her and planning how best to make the jump.

“No, Arthur,” she says in that tone that always makes him feel like such a child. “You’ll find it was only cruel. And it was the worst thing you’ll ever do.”

She turns and leaves, her skirts rustling like kindling beneath her.

Uther will ask about her later. He’ll be upset and he’ll blame Arthur for initiating a fight.

Arthur picks at his plate, the food long gone cold. Morgana’s words ring through his ears.

When he, too, stands and leaves before his father returns, he keeps his eyes away from the corners of the room where the servants should stand. Still, the emptiness of his world expands with each step he takes.

And the voice in his head interlocks with Morgana’s, reminding him of everything he’s done wrong.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

The light dances with colors across Merlin’s skin in Arthur’s dreams when night falls. Again, he faces a sun Arthur cannot feel, sleeves rolled up for a warmth Arthur knows cannot possibly exist— no matter how much Arthur wishes it would. As he walks with slow steps towards the spot where Merlin stands, he waits for the light to penetrate him, too. He waits for the sun to break open the dullness of his soul where nothing has warmed him for more days than he can count. He waits to understand the gentle look on Merlin’s face.

But Merlin’s eyes are shut when Arthur stands before him. His lips are parted; his chest rises and falls with easy breaths.

These are breaths that Arthur helped steal away. 

He pauses suddenly, his own lungs stilling and icing over as Morgana’s words play in his head once more. Accusations of his cruelty, certainty over his blame and fault in Merlin’s death. He doesn’t dare blink, doesn’t dare look away. Though Merlin’s presence here is a mystery, a haunting image, it’s nothing compared to the horrors he sees when he’s awake— the flashes of blood on sharp steel, of tears in Gwen’s and Gaius’ eyes.

When Merlin’s eyes open, it’s like a cloak falling across Arthur’s shoulders. Not quite warm but, rather, something heavy and meant to grant him comfort. When Merlin smiles, it’s a blade in Arthur’s chest.

“You’re still here,” Arthur says, only partially surprised he doesn’t spit out any blood with the words. Goodness knows how he tastes copper in his mouth here.

Merlin’s head tips to the side like a dog’s. “I told you I would be.”

_ But you’re a dream. But you’re not real. But you’re dead and you shouldn’t want to speak with me. _

Arthur could say these words but what would be the point? It wouldn’t lessen the weight on his chest, and it wouldn’t make this any better. He simply lets Merlin’s words wash over him— waves and rain and coolness on a summer day— and pretends it doesn’t feel like drowning.

“Arthur?” Merlin asks— and, gods, he actually sounds concerned. “Is everything alright?”

Merlin likes to fiddle with his hands when he’s nervous; it’s something Arthur noticed long ago, when Merlin would tug at the ends of his sleeves or pick at his fingernails in the background of meetings or trials or awkward dinners. It never really bothered Arthur— he liked the ability to read Merlin, to see a habit and know what it means— but, tonight, when Merlin goes to fold his hands together—

Arthur’s eyes are drawn to the bruises.

He’d seen them before; of course he’d seen them before. In other dreams and memories, in moments where his greatest concern was Merlin himself and not his wounds or scrapes or scabs. And they’re not bad— not really, not compared to what they could be— but Morgana’s scowl is in his mind and Merlin’s eyes are so genuine and Arthur had already fallen back into a horrible vision once, had already remembered how it had felt to see Merlin’s hands crossed behind his back— the way the rope had dug in a bit too tight, the way it pulled at his skin and rubbed it raw. Guards and knights never take care when tying back a prisoner’s hands— why should they, when they’ll be dead within the hour? But Merlin hadn’t ever seemed to fight against the rope burn, against the awkward angle or the roughness with which the rope pulled. And Arthur had had such an easy view of those hands, high above as Merlin knelt, as Merlin made small fists, as he kept still but twitched his fingers in a way Arthur could never call fear, easier to pretend it was a spell or an enchantment or a last attempt at freedom or—

Merlin follows Arthur’s gaze and takes a step back as if he’s only just realized the bruises are there. He tugs at his sleeves at once, beginning to pull them down as he blurts out meaningless apologies.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “It was hot, I didn’t think—”

And Arthur doesn’t remember making the decision, but he reaches out and grabs Merlin’s arm before the sleeve is fully down. Above the bruises, light enough for Merlin to pull back if he wants, he holds.

He watches Merlin, waiting for a smart remark or confusion, but Merlin simply goes terrifyingly still.

Merlin watches Arthur, and Arthur watches him right back. The only things moving are their hearts and lungs and the bit of breeze pulling at their hair and clothes.

Slowly— so slowly it could take all night, all morning and all day— Arthur shifts his thumb until it rests over the edges of the bruise. Merlin flinches but he doesn’t move away.

It’s still a flinch, though, and Arthur pauses.

His eyes shift over Merlin’s form, taking in the shallow breathing and the shade of uncertainty in his cool blue eyes. There’s a pale tinge in his cheeks now, his pulse fluttering too quickly beneath Arthur’s touch.

He’s…  _ scared _ .

And Arthur has never once in his life imagined Merlin as being  _ scared _ . Not of him. Never of him. Angry? Yes. If this was a dream, Merlin would say something cruel and cutting, would fit Morgana’s words to his lips and let them spill like blood from a wound never meant to heal. Or, if it was a dream, perhaps he’d be forgiving. He’d smile by now, take Arthur’s hand, call him silly and ask if he’s done feeling sorry for himself. There’d be wise advice and stupid jokes. There’d be anything but  _ this _ .

Because Arthur would never dream of fear in Merlin’s eyes.

But this has to be a dream, doesn’t it? Merlin’s dead. He’s gone, he’s—

Arthur presses into the bruise, just enough to draw out another wince. The fear never once drains from Merlin’s gaze.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, his throat suddenly thick and aching. In this dream, with Merlin’s wrist against his sweat-slicked palm, Arthur can ask questions he’d never say when awake. He can stay here and watch Merlin’s eyes. He can demand the impossible.

“Arthur.” Merlin’s answer is a question of its own, a breath brushing Arthur’s cheek.

Arthur swallows. He forces himself not to look away.

“Show me how to believe you’re real,” he says. He stitches the words together out of wonderings he’d cast aside, listening to their gentle sound in this strange place. A place with no time, a place filled with wind— a wind he mistakes for the rushing of blood in his ears. It all quiets, though, when he pulls Merlin to him and speaks again. “Show me how to believe you’re really here.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur’s only half-regretting the request as hours tick by, his eyes sore from the brightness of this place, and his mind worn out from Merlin’s endless attempts to explain what he’s done to be here. The fact that Arthur’s exhausted in his own dream, however, is far from his greatest concern.

Wanting to understand and actually understanding are two very different concepts, a fact that makes itself known with all the irreverence of an unpleasant stench. Arthur sits in front of Merlin, hands twitching in his lap and eyes distracted by the shift of grass around them, and listens.

He tries to understand, he swears.

But Merlin gestures like he plans to cast a spell. He speaks in languages forbidden from Arthur’s mind and knowledge. He says  _ magic  _ like it’s something good, and Arthur recoils as though Merlin’s pulled a blade from the air.

As Merlin does his best to explain with some far-off look in his eyes, Arthur grows sicker with each word. He wants to know. He wants to learn. He wants to  _ believe _ .

Until, well, he doesn’t. 

“Either way, um, I saw the spell in a book that was hidden in a secret room behind the library,” Merlin says, stumbling over his words with a red tinge on his cheeks. It’s a gentle blush but all Arthur can see is more blood. “It’s supposed to, uh, use magic to detach from the physical form. It pulls away from the body and into a vessel that the caster has chosen beforehand.”

Arthur blinks. “And you chose my dreams.”

“Ah, well.” Merlin’s blush grows darker. Arthur hates it, a little. “I chose you. Couldn’t really control the dream part. It was definitely something I didn’t expect or count on, so—”

“So, what?” Arthur likes this less and less. “You were meant to possess me, entirely? This is sounding a bit more like a curse than I think you want it to, Merlin.”

“I thought you were going to just sit there and listen while I explained,” Merlin says, tugging at the grass between them.

“And I thought I’d like this better if it wasn’t just a dream. Apparently, we were both wrong,” Arthur shoots back with a sharper edge in his voice— an edge strong enough to cut through skin, an edge he bites down on with his tongue between his teeth. 

Merlin keeps pulling at grass, his bruises shifting colors as they move in and out of shadows. Arthur watches Merlin’s hands because it’s easier than watching his eyes; it’s easier to believe he’d dream of Merlin’s nervous habits than his frustrated gaze.

“So you’re telling me there’s no easy way to prove you’re still alive?” Arthur asks when Merlin’s silence has gone on for too long. 

“I’m not alive.” Merlin doesn’t flinch at his own words, simply stating them as if they don’t hurt the way they should. “I’m just  _ here _ .”

“As if there’s a difference with that.” Arthur laughs harshly because it’s better than taking Merlin’s words to heart. It’s better than lingering on all the implications of  _ I’m not alive _ and  _ I’m just here  _ and the role he plays in all of it. “Whatever you want to call it, you’re still something I have to deal with. So, damn it, help me deal with it!”

“What on earth do you want me to say?” Merlin snaps suddenly, tossing blades of grass to the ground and lifting his head to glare at Arthur with all the shock of lightning and thunder and storm. “Do you imagine this is easy for me?”

The wind warms. Typically, it’d be a nice sensation; now, though, Arthur just feels as though he’s suffocating.

“At least you had a say in it!” Arthur shoves to his feet, the breeze like a breath on the back of his neck. “I didn’t ask to be your new home. I didn’t ask for you to be inside my head.”

“It was the only way to keep you safe.” Merlin follows Arthur’s lead, standing with heat in his throat, bitter words on his tongue. “You asked me to explain, to help you learn. How can I do that if you won’t listen? Can you, just once, listen?”

_ You must learn to listen as well as you fight _

It’s a memory Arthur doesn’t need.

“Don’t pretend this was just for me,” Arthur says.

Merlin’s eyes blaze. “It’s  _ all always  _ for you.”

And all Arthur can see are the times Merlin sacrificed himself for him— drinking poison, going against the king, following him into danger with nothing but the clothes on his back. All he can hear are Merlin’s declarations that Arthur will be a great king, that he’ll have a legacy, that Merlin’s happy to be his servant until the day he dies—

The Merlin who said and did those things now stands before Arthur like he’s wondering if all those words and actions were ever worth it. 

And, Arthur— Arthur’s never been good with hurt or guilt or confrontation. He’s never known how to handle emotions without a sword in his hand, without an enemy to cut down. Point him in the way of a fight; his anger will win the war.

His hands meet Merlin’s chest. 

“I never asked for your protection!” He shouts, he shoves. “I never asked for you!”

Merlin stumbles back, nearly tripping. But Arthur can’t see the way his feet fumble to keep from falling over. He can’t see the shaking in Merlin’s hands, the flailing of his limbs.

All he sees is the fury in Merlin’s eyes— the way blue cracks across the center to make way for the fiery wave of  _ gold _ .

Merlin doesn’t speak as he shoves Arthur back, but Arthur still feels the magic like a cry against his skin. It’s nothing big— nothing but a force pushing at his chest, forcing him back until he trips over his own feet and lands on the ground like a child standing too soon. It’s not enough to steal his breath or hurt him or keep him down.

But, still, it’s magic.

It’s magic, and Arthur feels it across his skin like dust that won’t wash off— like mist and fog and every spell ever screamed his way. He feels it like daggers thrown in his direction, like good men dying under the weight of an unseen curse, like Uther’s tears at Ygraine’s grave. He feels it press into his throat as he gasps, stinging his eyes as he stares without blinking.

He feels Merlin step forward, the gold fading as quickly as it appeared.

And, more than anything else, he feels afraid.

“Arthur, Arthur, I’m sorry,” Merlin says, rushing forward to fall to his knees at Arthur’s side. His hands wave uselessly in the air, hesitant to land as he checks Arthur over. “I… I didn’t mean to, I would never mean to, I just… I lost control. I can’t control it here, not like I could. This entire place is magic and I can’t keep it in place, I can’t keep it still, but I’d never, Arthur, I’d never, I shouldn’t even be able to—”

Merlin’s close, magic still falling off him and into Arthur’s air. Now that Arthur’s felt it once, it’s like he’s suddenly memorized every bit of it— the way it rushes through the air like a current in a stream, flowing over him and keeping him down as he struggles for breath. And through it all, Merlin keeps talking. Merlin keeps trying to explain.

Now’s not the time to feel afraid but Arthur doesn’t stop to think of such silly rules as he lunges forward, tackling Merlin to the ground.

“You’re a nightmare, a curse!” Arthur shouts as he shoves Merlin to the ground, trying to grab his wrists and force them away from his face, his eyes— those terrible golden eyes, like fire at night and like the glance of sun against a blade. They’re awful things but Arthur needs to see them, needs to know if Merlin’s going to try again. “Leave me! Let me go! You’re nothing but a demon, admit it.”

“Arthur, stop!” Merlin doesn’t fight back so much as he simply struggles, twisting and bucking and pulling his hands free each time Arthur has a grip. “Stop! Listen, please!”

He sounds so much like Merlin— frightened and betrayed— and that’s the greater crime. The fact that this terrible thing— this thing that can’t be Merlin, that never was his friend— can sound so much like him. That it can look at Arthur with those eyes, can say his name with that voice— it has to be stopped. 

“You can’t be here,” Arthur snarls. “You can’t be him.”

He reaches for the neckerchief— and how dare it wear this thing? This fabric of Pendragon red, tied so securely around a neck that cannot be its own. Arthur exists to tear it free and then tear the creature apart next. 

He’s only just wrapped the neckerchief into his fist when Merlin screams again.

This thing that calls itself Merlin— this thing that sounds like him, that looks like him, that feels like him in every way— yells Arthur’s name the way Merlin did when Arthur first turned his back on a traitor’s cell.

“Arthur, no!”

It can’t be Merlin, but—

Eyes flash gold and Arthur wakes as though he’s been falling all night and only just landed into his bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur doesn’t consider himself to be like those men who walk the towns and offer vague advice for coin. Those men who ask questions too deep to see the bottom of, who wonder and wander and ponder the meaning of existence and life and good and evil and death. Uther’s compared their philosophizing to madness too often for Arthur to have ever considered the same path of questions and horrible answers.

Now, though, meeting his third night with no sleep, he stares at the tails of a sunset and wonders whether things like happiness are only ever achieved with compromise. It’s what he’s been taught, isn’t it? True joy is rare and, even then, it always leaves a bitter taste behind the sweetness.

Maybe it’s the exhaustion prickling at his mind, driving him insane, but he stares at his hands and thinks of how he can’t spend another three days on that question alone.

He used to think profound thoughts when he was younger. It was another trait beaten out of him while training with the knights, meeting each night too tired to wonder about why the sky’s a certain shade of blue or why men go to war.

Of why sorcerers can wear the face of a friend and why Arthur’s so afraid to see that face again.

He sits on the edge of his bed, a different draught in his hand this time. He’d snuck it away from Gaius’ chambers after having a small cut— less than a papercut, really— bandaged earlier this day. It’s a paler shade, thicker and stronger smelling. He recognizes it as one of Morgana’s.

Meant to put her to sleep without fear of waking. Meant to crush all nightmares rather than simply tuck them away.

It’s not one of Arthur’s favorite ideas. If something happens in the castle or surrounding area, he needs to know he’ll wake without hesitation— sword in his hand before the guards can think to summon him. A prince always needs to be ready, no matter the hour.

But, he knows, a prince also needs to be rested. A prince needs to sleep.

Even now, his body aches with tiredness, pushing itself harder each day until he’s certain his heart’s moments away from giving up. His eyelids drag across his eyes, wishing desperately to shut for the night; it’s then, though, that a flash of gold and the brush of magic echoes through his mind and he forces his eyes open again.

Merlin’s not a nightmare yet Arthur can’t help but treat him like one.

Arthur twists Morgana’s draught between his fingers, watching it with the sort of fascinated delirium only a lack of sleep can bring. He’s always been intrigued by the things Morgana has to take to sleep. For years, now, she’s not slept without it. He knows this— which means he knows it doesn’t always work.

If he’s wrong about this, he’ll shut his eyes and see a sorcerer. If he’s wrong, he’ll fall asleep and have to face Merlin once again.

Normally, he’d weigh his chances of success for longer than a moment, but exhaustion clings to him like a second skin and he begins uncapping the elixir with a steadiness he’s surprised he still has.

It’s then that the warning bells ring.

Warrior’s instinct and adrenaline flood through Arthur faster than any hesitation could, washing away his tiredness as he hurries to his feet, grabs his sword and runs out the door. A guard meets him halfway down the hall, tells him that a sorcerer from the cells has escaped.

Arthur doesn’t think of golden eyes or the rushing waves of magic across his body. He simply nods, points his men in different directions and begins to search.

A majority of the guards check outside the castle, marching in stiff units and waving torches in the air as if to draw the criminal out like a moth. Arthur sticks inside, pacing the halls with his blade ready. He doesn’t know what this man looks like but he knows he’ll recognize him— all sorcerers have the same cruel light in their eyes— even when those eyes are blue and kind and gentle and everything Arthur never knew he wanted to trust so greatly.

He turns down a corner into the armory, his steps lighter as the sound of shifting metal reaches his ears. Panting breaths, too panicked to know to be quiet, quicken as he steps inside.

He raises his sword. His gaze hardens.

“Who’s in here?” He calls. “Show yourself.”

He’s expecting a sorcerer like the ones he’s seen before. Men with robes and glowing eyes, cursed words on their lips as they sneer at Arthur and his family. He expects a threat, a danger, a criminal to return to the dungeons.

But the boy who stands with a shield held with shaking hands is only that— a boy.

“Please,” he says. “Please, I just want to go home.”

Arthur’s heard these words from dozens of sorcerers before— murderers and thieves and people who’d see him dead if given the chance. The fact that this boy says them with such fear doesn’t change a thing.

Because sorcerers lie. They trick and they betray.

Arthur marches forward until the point of his sword is at the center of the shield. The boy may feel safer behind it but Arthur can still strike him down should he make a stupid move. Arthur flicks through the possible scenarios— the way he’ll trip the boy if he tries to run, the way he’ll aim a blow to his wrist if he pulls a knife, the way he won’t look away even if those eyes begin to glow.

Moments pass, the boy’s eyes stay a steady pale blue.

And it’s the blue that does it. The blue against shadows, the blue looking back into Arthur’s sleep-deprived face— wide-eyed and searching for something Arthur knows he won’t find. The boy’s short, his face full of baby fat and hope, but, for a moment, Arthur swears the boy begins to change. That there’s a sharpness to his features, a familiarity to his eyes, a certain softness in his voice when he says, “Prince Arthur, please.”

Arthur keeps his head up, his breaths even, but his heart twists painfully.

“You’re coming with me back to the cells,” he says. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“No!” The boy cries out, lifting a hand and sacrificing his safety behind the shield in order to do so. Arthur draws back just an inch— and he doesn’t remember how Merlin didn’t need to lift a finger in his last dream, how he didn’t seem to need to think. “No, I won’t go back there. It’s not fair, you can’t just—”

The boy stops. His eyebrows furrow together.

“You’re…” He fumbles for words, his hand wavering in the air. His palm nearly presses the point of Arthur’s blade. “You’re exhausted. I can feel it.”

Fantastic. Another sorcerer reaching into his mind, searching for a weakness. Arthur grits his teeth. 

“Listen, here,” he says. “I told you that—”

The boy’s eyes grow distant, though he still watches Arthur. “Emrys?”

Somehow, Arthur knows the boy’s not talking to him anymore. The boy steps back as Arthur steps forward but he doesn’t seem afraid. He nods, muttering to himself. Arthur should strike now, take him away and be done with it, but there’s something in that boy’s eyes. There’s something that makes the blue twist, makes it look like drops from an ocean Arthur once knew.

“I understand,” the boy breathes. He sounds insane but, still, Arthur doesn’t move. “Of course. I trust you. We all do.”

At last, Arthur shakes his head and focuses on the task at hand. Grab the boy. Lock him up. Forget this strange encounter.

“Are you coming or—”

“My apologies, Prince Arthur.” The boy’s eyes begin to simmer into a low gold shade— not as brilliant as Merlin’s, not half as bright. “But I’ve been told you need to rest.”

The gold is the last thing Arthur sees before consciousness slips away into the temptation of sleep. 

But it’s not the boy calling his name that tugs him the rest of the way under.

He recognizes the touch of Merlin’s magic, even as he shuts his eyes and collapses to the ground.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

There’s a light pressed to Arthur’s eyelids, dull and flickering. There are voices swimming through his mind. There are people saying his name.

“Arthur.” It’s Gaius, his faithful and familiar tone easing Arthur even as he struggles against the weight of sleep pulling him down, keeping his body still and his eyes shut. “He’s only sleeping.”

“But his head.” And that’s Gwen, frantic with her words even as she tries to keep calm. “His head is bleeding.”

“A small cut from the fall, nothing more,” Gaius answers her. “I’ll clean it up. He’ll be fine.”

Is it exhaustion and hallucination or does Gwen breathe a sigh of relief at that? Arthur tries to lift his hand, tries to lift his head. Nothing moves.

Gaius’ fingers— gentle, caring— touch the space beneath Arthur’s eyes as if painting. 

“He’s not been sleeping,” he says, answering some question Arthur hadn’t heard. “It’s possible his mind and body just gave in.”

“How long?” Gwen’s voice is low. Even with Arthur seemingly asleep between them, she and Gaius speak as if afraid their secrets can be snatched from the air. “How long has he been having such troubles with rest?”

Gaius takes his time answering.

“To pass out like this?” Gaius says, and Arthur wants to snort at the thought of passing out. He wants to defend his dignity, wants to tell them off, wants to turn and make a joke at Merlin and— “It’d have to be a couple weeks. I’d say since—”

Gaius cuts off. It’s not like him. 

“Since we lost him.” Gwen’s voice again, nothing but a whisper. Arthur feels her breath against his cheek but he still can’t move away, can’t turn. Can’t someone tell that something’s wrong? Can’t someone fix this?

Merlin would.

Merlin—

Where’s Merlin?

Arthur tries to stretch out, his fingers twitching but not enough to attract attention. He tries to turn his head, to open his mouth. Nothing works. Nothing moves.

There’s a sorcerer, he thinks. A sorcerer who’s escaped. He remembers that. He remembers the armory, the trembling voice. He needs to wake and hunt him down. He needs Gaius to see he’s clearly been cursed, enchanted. He may never wake—

_ You’ll wake _

Arthur’s mind stills, though he imagines his heart is racing. 

_ You’ll wake, Arthur, I promise. But, now, you need to let yourself rest. _

That’s Merlin, but he’s not beside Arthur. His voice appears as though around him, holding him further in place; sinking into his skin with all the familiarity Arthur never let him have.

_ Sleep, Arthur. Please. _

But Arthur aches at the sound of Merlin’s voice and he can’t remember why. His mind stings when he reaches for the answer, burning him like he’s a child reaching foolishly for embers. Merlin’s voice is fading away and Arthur wants to chase it— to run, to hunt, to grab the man and never let him go.

He’s never had these thoughts before. Is Merlin hurt?

That must be it, he figures. That’s why he can’t let himself sleep. Because Gaius and Gwen don’t seem to know that Merlin’s injured or lost or whatever trouble he’s gotten himself into this time. 

Gaius’ hand at Arthur’s shoulder, trying to comfort him in his sleep. If Gaius can tell he’s agitated, then there may be hope yet.

With a strength that feels as though it may bruise his jaw, Arthur’s lips part. 

“Merlin,” he breathes, fast before the word can fade. “Merlin, Merlin, I—”

Gaius’ hand draws away. That doesn’t make sense. Or is he going to find help? Is he going to find Merlin?

Arthur wants to stand, to follow, but it’s as though the whisper alone drained whatever willpower he had left.

_ Sleep _ . Merlin’s voice is almost pained, almost guilty, almost as lost as Arthur is sure he must be.  _ If you want to find me later, I’ll still be here. _

But Merlin can’t defend himself, can he? Merlin can’t protect himself, can’t sense danger or trouble or harm or—

_ Arthur. Sleep. _

It’s not an order but a plea. And, despite everything, Arthur can’t help but to give in. He lets go of his struggle and his body relaxes from a tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The world comes in slowly— the fire crackling in Gaius’ room, the thick smell of herbs and medicinal pastes, the scratchy blanket beneath his fingers— and, then, fades as gently as it had come.

Merlin’s voice slips away with the rest of Arthur’s senses.

And, for the first time in a long time, Arthur sleeps without dreams.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

If Merlin’s presence in Arthur’s dreams was a mystery before, now it’s a complete mess. Or so Arthur thinks as he wanders down the halls to Gaius’ chambers the next day, prodding at his temples as if to shove out the answer as to why Merlin was gone from his head as he slept last night.

Though, a smaller part of his mind wonders if that absence is as obvious as it seems. Merlin’s not the kind to fade away so easily, is he? He’s more likely to linger behind corners and in shadows, head down so Arthur will believe him when he says that he’s not doing anything, that he’s clumsy, that he’s nothing but happy to be his servant until the day he dies.

The warmth Arthur used to feel when he’d turn his head to catch Merlin watching him from some safe distance was the same warmth he felt wrapped around his skull last night. Not like sun or fire but, rather, like a breath whispering his name.

A warmth— nothing more.

_ Unless it’s magic _ , he thinks and the remaining warmth fades into a dripping chill down his spine. Magic would be harder to run from. And magic would be harder to hide. Besides, magic is as much about disillusionment as it is about spells and charms. It’s just a thing meant to break trust and betray.

And betrayal is what happens when the charms don’t work.

These are the thoughts in Arthur’s head— which is fine, despite his father’s insistence to have his skull checked over by Gaius after the fiasco with the escaped sorcerer— when he steps into Gaius’ empty chambers. They’re the same thoughts he forces away. He’d tried asking Gaius for help with his dreams once before; he’s not intent on doing so again. Why make a bigger deal of it than it is? Why draw attention to something that can only bring harm?

Besides, Gaius isn’t in the room and if Arthur had the bravery to bring up Merlin, it fades when his eyes fall straight ahead towards Merlin’s open bedroom door.

Just like that, fear gives way to panic; panic gives way to a hollowness he dares not name. It’s almost angering, he thinks. He walked all this way, condemned magic a thousand times in his head and, still, the sight of Merlin’s door undoes all the work the repetition had tried to fix.

Arthur takes a step forward, unthinking, and then stops. What is he doing? Walking to Merlin’s room? Planning to investigate or snoop around? If Gaius came back then— Well. Gaius is probably collecting herbs or delivering potions at this time. He shouldn’t be back for a few more moments, enough time to see the room and then lock it away for good. Merlin used to do those chores for him, that must have been why Arthur forgot not to come at this time. 

He wonders what other little things have changed since Merlin’s betrayal— because he can’t call it an execution or death, not if he wants to breathe without a rope around his lungs. This question, though, is traitorous and he shuts it down before any possibilities can respond.

All that matters, anyway, is that he takes yet another step towards Merlin’s door. He pretends the thudding sounds he hears are just his footsteps echoing in the empty room. Not a weight falling upon his chest; not a stuttered beat of his heart.

As he walks closer, more details flood out towards him. The mess of clothes and papers still scattered around Merlin’s floor peek out from around his bed; there’s a whistle of wind, the slightest of breezes, and Arthur knows that Merlin’s window has been left open. He doesn’t doubt that it was that way, too, the last time Merlin left. Merlin was always like that— rushing around with no care of his own comfort, even if it means leaving his window open on a chilly day. That, at least, would best explain the goosebumps raising along Arthur’s arms as he stands just outside the room. If the window was left open all this time, it’s hardly his fault, is it?

Still, he waits. Unmoving, barely breathing. A terrible thought occurs to him— he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he goes in and sees proof of Merlin’s sorcery. Worse than golden eyes that he can pretend were a trick of the light, worse than a confession he can imagine was pulled from bribed and blackmailed lips. Lies he’s whispered to himself to live with the echo of loneliness choking him at the worst of times— fantasies he knows can’t be true, though it’s easy to pretend.

Fantasies that will shatter if he walks into this room and sees a sign of Merlin’s double-life. It terrifies him. And, under that terror, there’s still part of his mind that simply doesn’t wish to intrude. He’d told the knights, however long ago, that he’d be the one to search Merlin’s room for any leftover hexes or dangers. But the thought of such a danger has turned him away each time he’s come this close.

But, then, Merlin wasn’t yet in his head those times. And fear of rebuke is flimsy in the face of a prince.

“Come on, Arthur,” he snaps at himself. “Stop being a child and just go in.”

It’s hardly an encouraging speech but it moves his feet forward. Little by little, until he’s in the room.

Until his breath burns like fire in his throat because, suddenly, being in Merlin’s room is like facing Merlin all over again. He may as well have let himself fall asleep. Merlin’s presence is so strong it’s like he never left.

Though Arthur rarely saw Merlin’s chambers before the arrest, he recognizes the little things that only Merlin could leave behind. Like the trail of clothes leading to the bed, reeking of exhaustion at the end of a busy day, too tired to fold his shirts or put them back in a drawer. Like the window— open, just as Arthur had guessed— peering out over the town and peeking at the sky, positioned as the perfect place for a boy like Merlin to stand and dream.

But worse than all this isn’t just the proof of Merlin. No. It’s the proof of Arthur in Merlin’s life. 

He sees it first in the line of candles left on the desk near the bed, unlit and barely burnt down. Because why would Merlin need to burn candles if he spends his nights talking with Arthur, never allowing himself time in the evening other than to fall in bed and sleep? And he sees it in the crumbled pages tossed towards the foot of the mattress. Arthur recognizes the words— words from the first few drafts of his last speech, a speech Merlin helped him write. And, gods, in this room, Arthur can nearly see Merlin sitting up in bed, frowning at the letters and trying to make them right. Frustration would roll off him just as strongly as his determination, working tirelessly for a task he’d never gain credit for.

If he was here, Merlin might have said he doesn’t do these things for the credit. And, maybe, Arthur might have believed him.

Then, though, there are the other things. Things like the comb left on the side of Merlin’s bed— and Arthur doesn’t think of how Merlin would fix Arthur’s hair in the mornings or how Merlin’s own head seemed to attract all types of twigs and branches whenever they’d hunt.

No. Instead, he thinks of the mess that Merlin’s hair had been as he’d been dragged off to the cells, sweaty and sticking to his forehead as he struggled with the guards and ducked from the fists aiming for his faceeach time he tried to pull away— away, but always back towards Arthur.

It’s the same with the shoes near Arthur’s own feet, paired in a manner that could almost be considered organized. Merlin always liked his boots, bragged that they kept his feet warm while Arthur’s fancy ceremonial fabrics could only ever be good for ballroom dancing. Arthur wouldn’t admit it out loud but, well, he liked Merlin’s boots, too.

Maybe that’s why it stands out so clearly in his head— so suddenly, so abruptly— that Merlin had stood barefoot on the executioner’s stand. Had they taken his shoes before sending him to the slaughter? Arthur blinks and, for a moment, he watches as Merlin winces while knights pull him across the rough cobblestone path to the axe and block.

Arthur wasn’t aware that prisoners and criminals weren’t allowed their shoes.

He turns his gaze away from these things. He tells himself he’ll forget them the second he turns back around. 

But then something else— something small— catches his eye.

A neckerchief, almost. Its edges are a bit more uncertain than the ones Merlin wore so commonly, the fabric itself thinner than it should be. Arthur knows it right away— and he hates that he does.

It’s a piece of one of his old capes, Pendragon red but tattered and falling apart after a run in with bandits. He’d been alone with Merlin, hoping to scout the area for a future hunt, and the men had seemed to fall from the trees like insects. They were unskilled with their blades and Arthur dispatched them easily enough, a few running off before he could get to them. 

Still, though, some had had a lucky hit and, as he’d scrambled back up from the forest floor, his cape had been stepped on, torn. And, once the bandits were gone, he’d looked up to see Merlin frowning at it.

_ “Don’t tell me I have to be the one to fix it,”  _ he’d said with a small frown.  _ “My hands are still sore from the last time you made me sew.” _

A snarky retort had been on the tip of Arthur’s tongue, ready to command more sewing for the rest of the week, but then his gaze had fallen upon dots of blood across Merlin’s skin. A series of scrapes along the knuckles of his right hand, coating the blossoming of a bruise beneath. 

It was a wound that would only ever grace the body of one who’d fought back.

Arthur never saw Merlin throw the punch— and, honestly, he couldn’t quite picture it, either— but Merlin was trembling slightly, the hand held a bit closer to his body than before. It wasn’t uncommon for Arthur to tease Merlin for being useless but, here, he had the smallest proof that Merlin had held his own in some fight— drawn blood, struck out.

Arthur had unpinned the cape from his shoulders and tossed it over.

_ “Take it,”  _ he’d said.  _ “A prize for surviving your first bandit encounter.” _

_ “What am I supposed to do with it?”  _ Merlin asked.

_ “Whatever you want.”  _ Arthur had paused, noting the state of Merlin’s loose and ragged red scarf.  _ “Make a new accessory out of it. The color does seem to suit you, after all.” _

Proving his point, Merlin had blushed. He’d held the cape close, but Arthur had never seen it again.

Until now. A makeshift neckerchief hanging off the post of his bed, cared for but never worn.

If Merlin was lying about their friendship, why would he keep this? Why would he care? 

Arthur moves forward, begins to reach out, then stops.

Perhaps it’s cursed.

His hand pulls back to his chest harsh enough he nearly slaps himself, and he gasps as he stares. 

Perhaps something— anything— in this room is cursed. Merlin’s supposed to have magic.

And Merlin seems to have been stuck in his head.

Arthur slows his breaths, tries to calm down, but now he’s thinking of those dreams and those things that his Nightmare Merlin said. That he made this happen, that he did something to show up in his subconscious. Wouldn’t it make sense for him to have kept his magic hidden here? Is that why, suddenly, Arthur feels so sick?

All at once, his will to be in this place flees him and he turns to leave.

It’s Gaius’ scowling face that greets him first just outside the door.

“I wasn’t aware you were planning to visit, sire,” Gaius says, but there’s a tremble in his words. There’s anger in his eyes.

“I was just checking on—” What? On what? Arthur barely knows what he’s saying. “I didn’t mean—”

“I’d prefer if you’d grant me some warning next time you plan to snoop around while I’m gone.” Gaius shoos Arthur away from the door and then slams it with more force than necessary. It’s no way to behave around a prince and Arthur means to tell him, the brattish remarks already on his tongue, until he remembers the messiness of the room.

Had Gaius not seen it until now, either?

The thought leads Arthur to hold his tongue.

“Sit,” Gaius says with a weary sigh, directing Arthur to the patient’s cot. “Let’s check on that concussion of yours.”

Arthur’s not so certain he has a concussion but the last thing he wants to do is cause more trouble for Gaius so he shuts up and does what he’s told. 

Gaius prods at Arthur’s head for a while, feeling for bruises or bumps, and checks his eyes in silence before declaring him well enough to survive. Arthur had expected as much but, somehow, the feeling of Gaius’ hands against his skull had been comforting; he hadn’t realized he’d missed their familiarness so much.

“Luckily, you won’t be needing any medicine, though come to me if you start having headaches,” Gaius says. “Rest, really, will be the best remedy. It’s not hard to see that you’ve barely been getting any sleep.”

Arthur didn’t come here with a plan to tell Gaius about his dreams again, but Gaius raises his eyebrow and Arthur can’t escape the bits of truth that spill forth.

“I’m still having strange dreams,” he admits, his hands toying together in his lap as Gaius backs away. “They’ve not changed. They’re the same, but I don’t like them.”

“And so you’ve been avoiding sleep to avoid your dreams,” Gaius says. Arthur nods. Gaius returns the action. “Have you considered the idea that the dreams may be telling you something? What have they been about?”

That’s one question Arthur can’t bring himself to answer honestly. He shakes his head, dropping his gaze.

“Just a place,” he says, his voice lower than before. “Just a dream of grass and wind and a feeling that it’s somewhere I should know but can’t name.”

Morgana used to tell Arthur her dreams in hushed tones. She always made them sound beautiful, no matter how scared she might have been. Arthur’s words, though, hold no such beauty in them and he stands with another shake of his head.

“I’m sorry, it was stupid,” he says quickly. “I should go.”

“No, stay,” Gaius says. “I’ll make a concoction to help you sleep. It should be stronger than the other one I gave you, so be careful with it. You may find yourself sleeping in a bit later than you’d like, but at least it’ll keep any disturbances out of your head during it.”

Arthur nods, sitting back down as Gaius gets to work. 

Before he goes to his vials or ingredients, though, Gaius digs out one of his smaller books and passes it to Arthur.

“Look through this,” he says. “See if it has anything useful. There are theories that images in dreams can connect to physical ailments. I have my own doubts about that but it’s worth trying.”

Arthur doubts science and medicine can explain the way Merlin’s put himself inside Arthur’s mind but he opens the pages anyway. Sure enough, it’s just as Gaius said— lines and fancy words that tie strange dreams to health or stress. He flips through the pages without much care, only pausing when he sees a passage that startles him just a bit.

A superstition— no more than half a paragraph leading into something meant to dispute it. Good thing, too; his father would have the writer’s head if they’d said anything condoning any belief edging this close to witchcraft.

Still, Arthur presses his fingers to the words and reads slowly.

_ It was once believed that someone who dies in a dream will also die in their waking life. _

Within the confines of his chest, Arthur feels a wariness grow. It has no reason and it has no place.

But he turns and finds nothing but torn out pages, and the feeling swells up to his throat.

Just then, Gaius turns and passes him an all-white potion, reminding him of its strength.

“Take the book with you, too,” he says. “You never know where you’ll find something that will truly help.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Merlin’s there again when Arthur sleeps that night. He’d left the potion beside his bed but, somehow, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to take it. Not while there were still questions to explore; not while he still felt something brimming beneath his skin whenever he so much as heard a whisper of Merlin’s name.

When he opens his eyes into that field, Merlin’s already there. Waving from a few feet away, biting back some strange smile Arthur can’t comprehend. He’s beginning to say Arthur’s name, he realizes at some point, so Arthur beats him to it.

“Merlin,” he says, though it’s still only just a breath. “You’re still here.”

Merlin’s wave falls. “Where else would I be?”

Where else  _ could  _ he be, indeed?

Not for the first time, Arthur ignores the distant look in Merlin’s eyes.

“I fell asleep while trying to arrest a sorcerer,” Arthur says instead of answering, his jaw tight. “Was that your doing?”

“He was a druid, not a sorcerer,” Merlin says and, for a moment, it’s like they’re in the safety of Arthur’s chambers, tucked away from other eyes as Merlin gives advice where, instead, he should simply nod and agree. “And he was young. He didn’t deserve to burn.”

Arthur prides himself on his ability to turn away from expressions of emotions— to look at sad eyes and still know what a king should say, to hear screams from a crowd but understand that his father must be right. Merlin’s the one person who’s ever broken past that barrier.

When the emotions come from inside his own chest, in the shape of a cold hand sinking into his heart and blood, it’s hard to hide the small intake of breath. 

“Then you can make me sleep,” he struggles to say, focusing on what’s important here— not the pitying gaze in Merlin’s eyes, not the ache he feels when he thinks of sorcerers led to their deaths. “Is there anything else I should know about your control over me?”

Merlin doesn’t answer right away, though his arms do fold over his chest.

“I thought you thought I was just a dream,” he says, a wry smile on his lips.

Arthur huffs and looks away. Yet, even as he looks down at nothing but grass and the small pale blue irises beside his feet, he still feels something sharpen between him and Merlin. Something sparks in the space between, something brighter than the words left unsaid.

“Let’s pretend I’m a dream, then,” Merlin says once it becomes clear Arthur’s not going to answer. His arms fall to the side and he looks off to the sky, wandering in some aimless direction around their area. “What would that mean for you? Am I supposed to haunt you? That would imply a guilt— but do you feel guilty? Or is my job simply to remind you not to trust anyone? To be the face of a traitor so you never let yourself be fooled again?” Merlin stops, shaking his head. “No, that doesn’t sound like me. A curse, then, maybe. I’m sure you’ve thought of that. And I’m sure your father would—”

“Maybe you’re simply here to kill me.”

Merlin’s rambling cuts off, his pacing pauses. His lips part as though he plans to speak but the words won’t come out.

Arthur takes another breath, his heart like a sharp-winged butterfly battering against his chest. 

“They say,” he says, “that if you die in a dream, you’ll never wake from it. It doesn’t matter what you are if the result is the same.”

A moment passes. The brush of wind against the back of Arthur’s neck fails to cool the rising heat against his skin.

Bit by bit, Merlin seems to shrink. He lets out a soft breath, something that could almost be a disbelieving laugh, and his hand shifts as though wishing to reach for Arthur.

“Come on,” he says, and it’s almost fond. It’d certainly be kind if it didn’t sound so sad. “You know I could never kill you.”

Merlin could never kill him— would never hurt him, would never think of such an act.

But that was the Merlin who woke Arthur with silly names and a joke about his weight. That was the Merlin who ran into danger with him, who promised he’d be his servant until the day he died.

There was another Merlin, one he knew just once, who stood over him as his skin burned. Golden eyes seared into him, something powerful buzzing around his being. Merlin muttered words like curses as he whispered above Arthur’s weak form— wounded from another beast, broken from another battle; Merlin filled the room with the lightning strike scent of magic.

It’s this Merlin in Arthur’s head as he takes half a step back. 

The Merlin he knew would never kill him— but he doesn’t know if ever knew Merlin, at all.

“Besides,” Merlin says, his smile— more than his words— interrupting Arthur’s response, “if you die, there’s no point in me being around, really.”

Oh. Right. Because no matter what he is— ghost, curse, dream— he can’t exist without the safety of Arthur’s skull. He can’t stay here without the protected promise of Arthur’s dreams as his new home. This thing wasn’t talking about the sentiment of a past servant or even hinting at a time they might have been friends. Self-preservation, survival, selfishness.

Arthur turns away, the taste of bile thick against the back of his throat.

“I don’t need to be here,” he snaps. “I want to wake up.”

“Arthur—” Merlin speaks with the tone of a wounded animal, each note of his voice aimed at a place that might have stung. Arthur simple brushes it away as he would a persistent fly.

“Let me wake up.”

Merlin sighs but Arthur can still hear him stepping forward, can still feel the brush of cool fingers against the back of his neck. His hands clench into fists, desperate for a sword, and he nearly jerks away.

Something, though, holds him in place.

“Alright,” Merlin breathes. Hesitation seeps from his touch. “I do have answers, you know. I just need you to ask the right questions.”

Arthur shuts his eyes, biting his tongue to keep from lashing out. 

Even turned away, even with his eyes shut tight, he still sees the gold that fills the space around them— expanding, growing, consuming— before it all snaps back into place and he wakes with a jerk back in his own bed.

Awake. His heart pounds as though still in that nightmare world of false friends and play-pretend.

He tosses his sheets aside, standing a bit too quickly and nearly stumbling over his own feet in his haste. It’s cold and it’s still dark out but he can’t bring himself to turn back to his bed. His bed— the place of sleep and dreams. His bed— the place that brings him to the last face he ever wants to see.

His stomach rolls as Merlin’s voice sticks inside his mind, as relentless as it ever was. He swallows down his sickness, though, reaching for a nearby pitcher of water and pouring a glass to clear his head.

Outside, the edges of the horizon kiss the sky with pink and orange tones. He has a few hours until his servant will come to prepare him for the day. Still, despite the exhaustion aching in his bones, he knows sleep is a far-off thing— not unless he wants to lie awake and twist his thoughts round and round until he goes insane.

It’s with a surprisingly steady hand, then, that he lights a candle and sits at his table, Gaius’ dream book back before him. It’s as useless as before, filled to the brim with medical terms he can’t understand and superstitions that edge a bit too close to premonition and sorcery for his liking. He flips through each page with growing distress, finally coming to the torn pages near the back. Here, he pauses. His fingertips follow the ragged path of ripped paper, careful not to cut himself but still pressing closely as though he can find a clue in its mess. He can guess at what was there before— the pages in front of this dance dangerously close to magic and spells— and he’s sure tearing the pages was the only way for Gaius to be allowed to keep such a book.

Still, he can’t help but wonder if those are the exact pages he needs to unravel this maddening mystery.

Perhaps another book, then. Geoffrey may find something similar in the older and dustier parts of the library, and Gaius may yet remember what’s been lost. It’s not a perfect plan but it’s a start. Anything to let Arthur feel like he’s at least trying to fix his dreams.

It’s when he’s moving to shut the book that something on the torn pages shines— ink, written by a reader and not an author. It’s then that his plans change.

He leans closer, eyebrows furrowing as he tries to make sense of the markings. A few letters here, half a word there, the handwriting rushed and jumbled and frantic just like—

Arthur stops, his entire body held still by the rushing of blood roaring through his ears, the realization like a flame against his skin.

Slowly, everything begins to fit together. The edge and excitement around each letter, the shape of each word— he’s seen it before. On notes and speeches and corrections on his calculations.

He’s seen Merlin’s handwriting. And he knows it just as well as his own.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

The thing that puts Arthur to sleep at night and wakes him in the morning in the regular fashion he’d known since he was young doesn’t work quite as quickly as he’d like as another meaningless day ends and he’s faced with the realization of night. He takes one of Gaius’ sleeping potions— weaker, meant to lead him from awareness but not from his dreams— and, with that bitter taste in the back of his throat, he shuts his eyes.

When he opens his eyes to Merlin and that damned field, he’s ready.

With Merlin, the closest friend he’s ever had, it’s far too easy to grab him by the shirt and push him until he’s pressed into the trees that have lingered against the edges of this dream. Perhaps it’s rage, perhaps it’s nothing but faulty dreamworld details, but the forest seems closer.

Perhaps, a piece of Arthur’s mind wonders— perhaps it’s not that the trees are close, but that he and Merlin are further from the center of this world than ever before.

Still, Merlin’s back slams against tree bark and wood, branches and leaves trembling as Arthur’s fists tighten, as Merlin’s eyes widen and he gasps for useless breaths.

“The dream book,” Arthur demands, not caring to explain his words. From the way Merlin’s mouth gapes, he realizes he doesn’t need to. “What are the pages you tore out? What did they say?”

Merlin seems to shrink beneath his touch, so small when compared to every horrible thing he’s done.

“I can’t tell you, you wouldn’t—”

“What? Understand?” The words tear from Arthur’s throat like a growl, burning his mouth as he spits them out. “I already saw it, Merlin. I already know you’ve been lying to me. Is that what this is? A spell? Some awful curse that you destroyed so no one can ever find out how to undo it?”

“It’s not a curse,” Merlin snaps back. “And I destroyed it because I didn’t want you to find out about what I’ve done from some scribbles in a book. You think you’re angry now, Arthur? Imagine how you would have felt, then.”

His words— his confession— fall into the air with all the weight of a secret held too tightly for too long.

Arthur takes a breath. He pretends he doesn’t feel the way it shakes.

“Tell me where the pages are,” he says. He doesn’t sound half as calm as he’d like.

When Merlin meets his eyes, any amount of regret is hidden behind a steel as sharp as Arthur’s sword.

“I burned them.”

“You—” Arthur pulls back from Merlin, stumbling as though flames have lit beneath his touch from the word alone. He stares, his voice failing him and falling into a pathetic croaking sound. “What?”

“I burned them.” Merlin says this slowly, deliberately. If not for the shaking hands, Arthur would think him dangerous. “You know, everything else— everything I’ve ever had to hide from you— I’ve kept beneath the floorboards in my room. Magical objects and more pages of spells and wizardry. If you wanted, you could have found all of that by now.”

Arthur barely moves, knowing he should speak but words refusing to come to him. Merlin’s right— isn’t he always? If he had done his job and investigated and searched and treated Merlin like a criminal rather than a traitor, maybe none of this would be here. Or, at least, maybe he’d understand.

But Merlin smiles softly and he shakes his head.

“I knew that, eventually, Uther would call for a search of my things. Maybe not yet but, when he remembers the traitor servant, he’ll point his guards in the right direction. And I couldn’t chance that those pages I burned would be amongst the things they’d find,” he says. “No one but you can ever know what I’ve done.”

“And what have you done?” Arthur asks, his mouth dry and his tongue thick. “Put yourself in my dreams? Haunting me like the thousand times you’ve already said you aren’t?”

At this, Merlin’s cheeks dust with the faintest shade of pink. He looks down; it’s not reassuring.

“It’s not your dreams,” he says quietly. “I’m just— I’m in your head.”

“My head,” Arthur repeats. “Like—”

His body heats slowly. He takes a sharp breath.

This is worse than he’d ever thought, and Merlin glances up as if he already knew that.

“So you don’t just create dreams for me to stick in.” Arthur means for it to be a question but every bit of it is clipped and jagged, his entire being trembling for another reason than before. “You have free access to my thoughts. My memories. Every part of my mind that I don’t even understand for myself.”

“I try not to look,” Merlin says, as if that makes this any better. “Gods, Arthur, I would never invade your privacy like that. But, when you’re awake, it’s not like I really have anywhere else to go. Nowhere but memories of us together, reliving these moments until you’re asleep and I’m called to another part of your thoughts— called here, you know, to talk with you.”

His memories. His thoughts. Everything that makes him  _ him _ .

What gives Merlin the right to such power? He’s already forced Arthur to sleep— what else can he do? Slip into his thoughts and suggest new ideas he’d never say? Can he change or erase memories, force people or emotions from his head? 

Is that why Arthur’s been haunted by Merlin even while awake? Is this the only reason he’s found it so damned hard to finally move on?

Arthur was never guilty— he was just forced to believe he was.

“Arthur, Arthur, please,” Merlin says. “Please listen, it’s—”

No. 

Like waking up, Arthur realizes it’s far past the time to listen.

When his fist crashes into Merlin’s cheek— sharp, soft, cool, warm— it’s not so much a decision as it is self-preservation. Identify the threat and take it out, make sure it can’t hurt him anymore. A pest, his father would say, a vermin. Cast it out. Force it away. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Get rid of it get rid of it get rid of it get—

“Get rid of it!” Arthur screams, shoving Merlin back to the tree and pinning him in place with their chests so close he can feel the heartbeat that shouldn’t be there, his hands back in Merlin’s shirt as he yanks him even closer. “Get out of my head! Take your curse back, I don’t want it! I don’t want  _ you _ —”

Time interrupts itself— it slows, it speeds, it stops, it strangles Arthur in its grasp until his hands fall from Merlin and, suddenly, they’re back in the center of the meadow again. The trees are gone, the blue flowers wilted. Not so much as a cloud shifts across the sky.

And Merlin stands before Arthur, his eyes gold, with a sword in his hand.

Arthur could run. He could fight. He could scream and he could curse— but what would any of this do?

Merlin holds a sword. He holds magic in his eyes.

All Arthur can do is take a step back, hating the fear pressing against his veins.

But, then, Merlin kneels.

He shifts the sword as he does, one hand kept by the hilt as the other slides easily down the flat of it, guiding the point further down. 

Guiding the point until it rests, like a whisper, against the hollow of his throat.

And guiding the hilt until it’s presented to Arthur like a secret he’s welcome to keep.

For a moment, none of this makes sense. 

“Things that die in a dream stay dead.” Though he’s the one on his knees, Merlin speaks with an authority that only Arthur should have. He keeps his eyes on Arthur’s, his hands steady even as he holds the blade to his own neck. “If you want me gone, Arthur, I promise that I won’t fight it.”

And, oh.  _ Oh.  _

Oh, gods.

There’s no wind but Arthur still feels a chill. And he’s no child but he still feels a knot forming around his throat.

“I had you executed,” he whispers. “Shouldn’t that have been good enough?”

Merlin smiles sadly— he’s been doing that so much lately, how did Arthur never notice?

“But you weren’t the one to bring the blade down.”

And, gods, there’s nothing to say to that. Nothing to think or feel or  _ do— _

Nothing, that is, but to take the hilt of the sword and realize that it fits a bit too comfortable in his hand.

The stillness in this meadow is growing. Arthur breathes more and more unsteadily, wondering if he can con this false nature into fading from existence. 

Still, though, the weight of his sword stays steady. And Merlin keeps watching him with those blue-gold eyes— the place where the sand meets the sea, the place where the sun greets the sky.

With one action, Arthur can ensure he’d never see those eyes again. And, after everything, would that really be so bad? One strike and this is over. One move and he is free. It’s the same thing he’s been taught since he was young— we cut the bad things out, Arthur. We don’t let them make a home in our lives.

But his knuckles are bruised from the way he’d hit Merlin. His throat is sore from the screaming he’d done.

Where are the bruises Merlin should wear for the way Arthur struck him? Where are the tears he’d shed so many times before— for a mouse, for a deer, for a stranger in the cells? Why won’t he cry for himself?

Why can’t he just be  _ real _ ? Why is he never just a hero or a victim, always finding someplace to rest between the two? Always trying to save the world without caring to save himself. Always the martyr without the added title of a saint.

Even now, he hides his scars.

Hours could pass. Days and millennia. And Merlin keeps staring into Arthur’s eyes.

“Take off your scarf,” Arthur says, surprised at his own ability to sound unafraid. Merlin, though, still holds the greater courage as he pulls his neckerchief free with one quick tug, revealing the pale skin underneath.

The skin, and the ragged red scar wrapped around it. It fits so easily around his throat Arthur nearly wonders if it’s choking him. With each second that Arthur stares, the scar seems to sink deeper. 

With each passing moment, Arthur forgets about golden eyes— all he can see is the line of red. 

Merlin— with all his magic and all his power— let that happen. He let the ax fall. He let this scar form.

And, now, with Arthur’s sword pressed into that same wound, Arthur— like a crashing of a wave upon him, like a glimpse of the sun through dark clouds— realizes that Merlin would let it happen a second time if that’s what Arthur chooses.

If that’s what Arthur commands. Like a prince should. Like a ruler should. 

But not like Arthur ever could.

“Gods, Merlin.” He barely feels his body as he staggers back, the sword falling from limp fingers as he gasps for a breath he can’t quite seem to reach. “Gods, Merlin,  _ why _ ?”

The ground meets him with no kindness as he sinks to the ground, his hands tangling in his hair.

“Why did it have to be you?” He asks. “Why did it have to be  _ you _ ?”

Arthur’s meant to be a king one day. He’s meant to rule a nation of people and, if there’s one thing he’s learned from his father, it’s that a king is meant to be strong. A king doesn’t spare those who have hurt him. 

And a king certainly doesn’t swallow down sobs so harsh it hurts, shaking and trembling like an infant in the night. 

A king doesn’t watch a traitor through blurred vision. A king would never choke out their name.

But he’s not a king yet, is he? Right here, right now, he’s just—

“Arthur,” Merlin says, and his eyes fade back to blue. Even as the gold fades, though, Arthur still swears he can see a new light behind Merlin’s gaze. “Arthur, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Slowly, the wind returns with its hand through Arthur’s hair. The clouds begin their trek across the sky. 

Even so, Arthur can’t move.

He can’t do anything but sit in this meadow of his mind and cry.


	4. Chapter 4

Morning. It cracks into Arthur’s life like thunder. The sun is a blade through his body.

Asking permission for a hunt is easy; his father’s always more amenable when guests are on their way. Already, a handful of nobles have arrived at the gates in preparation for a celebration following a knighting of the new recruits. In the past, Arthur had looked forward to the larger chances to honor his knights but, recently, Leon had all but taken over the training. Arthur supposes Leon knows his knights better than he does now.

So, Arthur asks for a hunt, for a chance to find some prized animal to place with the main dishes. His father grants permission.

Perhaps he wouldn’t have done so as easily if he had known Arthur planned on going alone.

The sun is still pulling its way to the center of the sky as Arthur prepares himself. As he saddles his horse, as he gathers his supplies, as he walks through the courtyard.

Alone.

Alone, but—

But he imagines there’s someone teasing him in the center of his thoughts, a place he can’t quite reach himself. He imagines there’s the press of long-ignored advice wandering through his mind, someone’s fingerprints tapping gently at his skull. 

He blinks as he directs his horse towards the gates. He can’t tell if the color behind his eyes is gold or blue.

The weight in his head is so heavy he nearly misses the silent gaze of someone else’s eyes upon his back.

He doesn’t mean to look. He doesn’t mean for paranoia to fill his thoughts. 

But, from her room, Morgana watches him. 

Arthur watches back, the sun beating against him— but even this is nothing compared to Morgana’s stare.

It chills him even as he turns his back and walks under the heat of the sun.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

It’s the first time Arthur’s hunted without Merlin; he notices from the silence and how maddening it is. Once, he enjoyed the quiet and the escape it provided. Now, though, is it fair that he yearns for snapping twigs and snide remarks?

The sun is warm above him, even through the shade of branches as he makes his way along the path of a few deer he’d seen. His horse already has a few rabbits tossed over her back, a collection of small game to make his father happy once he returns. It’d be harder to pack one of the harts up with him but, well, any excuse to stay away from those castle walls would be a good one.

The trees and clearings, after all, seem to offer the best escapes— even as he tries to forget what such scenery makes him think of now.

It’s only when he pushes aside some bushes, the deer tracks fading, that he pauses.

As he’d suspected, he’s come across two harts— red deer with curling antlers stood amongst the grass and light, smaller than he’s used to. One’s larger and older than the other, eyes darker but less certain than the smaller one; though, they both watch him as if awaiting his next move.

It’d be easy to shoot at least one, to raise his crossbow and bring him a victorious feast. The other would run away, to be sure, but at least he’d have the one.

Somehow, his arm doesn’t move. 

Within his mind, something shifts. It’s as though he can feel fingertips across his temple, thumbs against his jaw.

When he raises his bow, he already knows he’ll miss the shot.

The deer scurry off as his bolt embeds itself into a tree instead, his disappointment mostly feigned as he shakes his head and moves to retrieve it. Another day, he and some knights will come out and find them again. Another day, he’ll have someone here to distract him from ghosts inside his head.

Today, though, something rustles in the trees behind him and he turns, arrow forgotten as he reaches instead for his blade.

“Who’s there?” He asks, narrowing his eyes at the space behind him. “Name yourself.”

It’s all quiet for a number of moments, until a bird pulls free from the safety of higher branches to perch on one before him. A small falcon, eyes sharp and wings still tense for flight. 

Arthur takes only half a step towards it, lips closed to keep from doing something stupid like speaking to a bird. A bird that watches him, that stays still for him— even with his weapon at the ready, even with the markings of a hunter all over his body.

A bird that doesn’t fly off until Arthur shuts his eyes and clears his head. Perhaps it’s for the best the bird leaves— he didn’t want to waste time wondering what kind of bird, exactly, it was. He’d hate to know what sort of symbolism he’d find behind a certain bird sitting before him and taunting death. 

Once more, something twists within his mind. He doesn’t ignore it as well as he should. 

Returning back to his horse, Arthur sits with his back against a tree, breathing deeply and staring at nothing. He’s spent a good few hours out here— enough so that the sun’s dipping towards the horizon, that he’s gone through the food he’d packed, that he’s tempted to just stay out here despite promises he’d be back by nightfall. It wouldn’t be hard to make a fire or to come up with another excuse as to his behavior. Hiding away in the forest? He’s sure it wouldn’t be so hard.

The camp he makes is a small one, half-hearted with a fire that’s more to retain warmth rather than light as daylight lingers in the sky but fails to keep any real heat with it. It’s a dangerous act, he knows, tempting bandits from their shadows to find him alone, but there’s a buzz beneath his skin at the thought of anyone trying to attack. Be it ghost or mere confidence, something whispers he’d be safe to sleep out here tonight. 

And that something settles across his skin at the thought, something warmer than the fire’s smoke and brighter than the sunset. It has him wrapping his arms around his middle, keeping him still even as he knows he should be skinning one of those rabbits for dinner— he can’t bring himself to move. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, he breathes easily.

Is this Merlin, now, in his mind? 

Despite all his training about safety and precaution, Arthur shuts his eyes. He’s not certain whether he feels like a knight or a child.

“Are you there?” He whispers. “Can you feel me, too?”

Quiet settles over his makeshift camp. Even the leaves and the wind seem to still. 

For a moment, it feels like the breeze is within his blood, rushing through his veins like the nature of it was within him all along. His eyes dart back and forth beneath his eyelids, searching for something unnameable within that dark, something untraceable within his own thoughts. There’s a string of a thing caught between his fingertips, he swears, and his hands twitch to try to catch it, feeling for the promise of it reaching for him, too— feeling for its smoothness but also for its rough edges, its sharpness and its caress.

Feeling it and knowing that, at once, it feels everything and nothing like Merlin.

Arthur opens his eyes, not rejecting the feeling but hiding from it instead. As he rests against the ground, his jacket pulled tight across his shoulders, he forces himself to think of anything else. Like how he’ll have to explain his absence tonight to his father. Like how he’ll have to face Morgana when he goes home. Like how there’s a rock pressing into the space above his left hip.

Like how he’s slept on the ground before. Like how Merlin had slept on the ground his entire life before Camelot.

Back in Ealdor, Merlin had said he needed a place to fit in. Back in Ealdor, Merlin had asked Arthur not to think any differently of him. A promise only halfway requested; a promise only halfway fulfilled.

Though he tries not to think of it, it’s Merlin’s voice in his mind repeating those words. Not a ghost or a spell or a friend trapped in his head— just a memory. 

Will had known, hadn’t he? Had known that Merlin planned to use magic, that he had had magic all along? It’s obvious now that Arthur thinks it, but he can’t imagine either of them considering him a fool for not guessing. After all, is it wrong to want to believe his friend couldn’t have been the traitor? Will had been right there— bitter from the start, against Arthur and all he stood for.

Merlin’s best friend up until the very end. He may have sacrificed his life for Arthur, but it was his very nature he swore away when he took the blame for Merlin’s magic.

Taking Merlin’s magic with just a few words— who does that without a thought? Perhaps a loved one— gods know Merlin’s mother had to have known— but simply a friend? A friend of a sorcerer?

Is it that easy to be so loyal? It’s a horrible thought but, Arthur supposes, perhaps it’s for the best that Will doesn’t know what Merlin’s ultimate fate was. If anyone had the temper or reason to plot a rebellion, it would be him.

Arthur wonders if anyone in Ealdor knows. Gaius hadn’t taken time off after the execution, still under suspicion of housing a sorcerer, but had he written a letter? Do Merlin’s other friends have any idea of what happened?

Does his mother?

Arthur thinks again of how Merlin didn’t quite belong at Ealdor, and how Hunith had supported his return to Camelot so strongly. He tried not to picture a younger Merlin hiding behind his mother’s skirts, not yet filled with that magic that tainted his soul now. Alone and afraid— the same way he died.

Arthur’s going to be sick.

Sharp points of memory and regret keep in his mind but Arthur twists away from them, physically turning to reach into his bag for a vial he’d brought— a vial he’s kept on him since receiving it, just in case. The little bottle of Gaius’s sleep potion. The one promising no dreams, no nightmares— nothing but one night away from Merlin’s grasp. His thoughts rock as he folds his fist around it, nausea pulling at him the way it had when he was a child and had his first adventure on one of his father’s boats. 

When he’s lying on his back once more, facing the deep blue of a sky nearly turned to night, he holds the vial to his chest. He doesn’t drink it. He doesn’t look at it.

Within him— in a place that’s neither his mind or body— something continues rocking. He’s sea-calm, an ocean under a clear sky. Above him is nothing but blue and suddenly he’s imagining a glass-bottomed boat and nothing to fear.

As the sky continues to darken, he presses back into that ocean feeling, not caring if he never sleeps.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur doesn’t wake so much as he opens his eyes after a blink too long and notices that the wind is rising up again. He waits, watching leaves scatter from branches and roll through the sky, the breeze sailing into him like the boat he sees when he closes his eyes. 

From the tree she’s tied to, his horse snuffles and the spell— the fixation— breaks enough for Arthur to realize he should prepare to return home.

He’s not particularly looking forward to it. Both because of his father’s frustration and for the spirits he faces in every corner. 

The path he takes back is a lesser known one, only a hint of a trail crossing through rocks and past streams, but it’s a path the wind blows along— a path he follows only because he feels as though it’s asking him to do so. Though he hadn’t properly slept— if he had slept at all— his head is clearer than it had been before, more aware of the sound of small critters passing by and each twig snapping beneath his feet. It’s not a hunter’s mind that notices these things, though. No, rather than a predator stalking for prey, his skin bristles with the feeling that these things notice him, too; they notice him, and make themselves known simply because they recognize him as something he can’t yet name. Some small tendril of connection wraps around his arms and pulls him forward, even as something else reaches back out for the nature around him.

It’s this connection that brings him to a stop, his feet pausing before his mind acknowledges why.

There’s something in the path ahead of him.

He tenses the way he would whenever he’d hear bandits in the distance, or sense an animal too large to take down on his own. It’s not either of these that strike his thoughts as he furrows his brow and gazes at the place just beyond his sight, tucked away in shrubbery and past the last turn he’d need to take. It’s something else, something he’s not faced on his own. In the back of his mind, he recalls the druid boy who’d gotten away. He couldn’t have been in Camelot if his camp hadn’t been close, and Arthur’s father had mentioned the chance of the Druids moving closer to the city. Certainly, some of their people have come to the king with reports of such sightings, though patrols had never come across anything to confirm this.

Arthur’s not afraid, but the feeling of wrongness still sits heavy in his gut— a hole sinking the coracle he’d placed his peace into. 

Something in the woods makes the shadows seem darker, makes each small sound seem louder. Yesterday, Arthur would have reached for his sword.

Today, he turns his horse the other direction and finds another path home. It only feels a little silly but, he supposes, he’d rather take the long way back then risk his life over some pride no one would see him lose.

Back on a trail he’d been raised to memorize, older knights teaching him how to find his way home, he tries to lose himself in that feeling from before. He tries to see the forest through eyes that  _ know  _ the forest but, like water through his fingers, the brief flash of fear he’d felt had caused it to slip away. He sees only wood and leaves, grass and dirt.

And, then, at the edges of the wood with the castle walls already in sight, he sees pale blue irises blooming beside his feet. 

They mean nothing, at first, but he pauses to look at their delicate petals, feeling like a man on water with nothing but leather and lath to keep him from drowning. Like, any moment, this world could fade into one where he can barely breathe.

Into another world, uncharted and unseen.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

It’s raining by the time Arthur’s passing through the courtyard, handing the game he caught to a servant who’s come to make certain he’s alright. He looks over Arthur with a dubious gaze, no doubt thinking of whether to tell the king how weathered his son looks after an unplanned night in the forest. Arthur waves him off. He doesn’t look forward to hearing what the servant saw in him; his soul feels transparent.

As he nears the steps to the palace, he catches sight of another noble family trying to make their way up the stairs in the rain, the women clutching their skirts tightly as the men hold their arms to steady their steps. Arthur longs for a hot bath and some food but he hurries towards them anyway, helping the daughter to find her footing as she nearly trips over her too-long skirts.

“Oh, oh, Prince Arthur!” She says— Emilia, he remembers, with the blue eyes and short brown hair. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure, my lady,” he says. “Your family has come for the banquet, I presume?”

Her mother nods, sharing a look with her husband.

“We apologize for our late arrival,” she says. “We weren’t sure we would come, what with the talk of sorcerers hiding in the woods.”

Something stirs in Arthur’s gut. He ignores it.

“Well, I hope your travels were unbothered by such interruptions,” he says, receiving a nod in response. 

They make it to the top of the stairs and Emilia curtsies to him with a soft giggle.

“I appreciate your help, my lord,” she says. “It’s not everyday a girl is aided by a prince. Last time, I believe, it was your manservant who guided me. Is he here? I don’t mean to sound as though I’m prying, it’s just I promised to bring him some instructions on certain medicines he’d been asking after. He was so sweet, really. What was his name?”

The sea in Arthur rolls. “His name was Mer—”

“Emilia!” The older woman snaps, reaching to pinch her arm in a manner that’s not at all as subtle as she tries to make it. “You know better than to speak of him. The manservant was the traitor your father told you of last night.”

Emilia’s eyes widen. “Oh, I’m— I’m so sorry, Prince Arthur. I didn’t realize the traitor was someone so trusted. I’ll take them to the physician instead, if I find the time. I’m so sorry, really, I—”

Arthur’s saved from responding by a servant coming up to the family to direct them to their rooms for the duration of their stay. Arthur nods to them, mouth dry, and they part ways.

“—so close to the royal family, and working with a physician!” Emilia’s mother hisses, once again drawing more attention than she must mean. Arthur pauses, watching the family and trying not to feel sick at their words as they continue down the corridor. “Imagine how many people he could have killed in that position, and how easily.”

Arthur’s heart pounds as her voice trails off. His hands twitch at his side, reaching for a sword or a hand to hold. 

It shouldn’t come as a surprise but…

But he really doesn’t like hearing other people talk about Merlin that way.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

The jokes and statements continue throughout the day and into the banquet. Arthur shouldn’t be as surprised as he is. Hatred of magic is what brought this kingdom together, after all. Or so Uther would have them all believe.

Really, though, it’s nothing new. And it’s not half as common as it would have been if there had been a more recent execution. It’s only every so often, and no one says Merlin’s name; not all of the statements have to do with him, either. Still, Arthur feels each one with more weight than he would have before. 

People come up to him, asking about his manservant or offering their condolences for the betrayal— never for the loss of a friend, always just pity for someone stupid enough to be fooled. He keeps in his seat, his hand always around his goblet of wine. He gives noncommittal hums to every noble trying to get on his good side by slandering magic and his manservant. Most walk away, assuming he’s bored. It’s horrible for his image and his father is sure to scold him later— gods know how he made it to tonight without a chiding for staying in the forest— but he can’t bring himself to care.

Morgana watches him the closest— her lips pressed firmly together, her head tipped ever so slightly to indicate some form of interest. She’s on Uther’s other side, toying with her food but not eating it, looking at other nobles and guests but not engaging.

Not engaging, of course, until someone further down the table tries to compare murderers and magic users. It’s a statement that can be lost in the sea of voices, the ever growing rumble of words in the banquet hall, but Morgana’s head turns to find the poor soul who’d spoken.

“It must be agreed upon,” the nobleman’s saying, someone with beady eyes and a gut hanging over his belt, “that magic is no better than murder. It only makes sense that both are served the same punishment of death.”

And Morgana’s eyes flash, a dangerous glint deep within them.

“That may be so,” she says, drawing attention her way. “But we don’t burn our murderers, do we?”

Those near the conversation share awkward smiles with one another, as though uncertain whether Morgana means for them to laugh. Certainly, it’s a statement that, from anyone else, would be nothing more than a joke.

Arthur can only watch as his father faces Morgana with a look of disappointment. Because his father can only think of how he looks in front of others, of what it means to be a king. He can’t think of why Morgana would say such things other than to embarrass him; he can’t fathom the empathy and ensuing horror she feels every day— the hurt Arthur sees but still can’t do anything about.

“Well, let’s be fair,” Uther says, jovial and with laughter in his tone. “Our last execution was a beheading.”

Arthur wonders if he picked those words because of how much they hurt, or if it’s another thing he just couldn’t imagine as bad.

Rage drives Morgana from her seat, her face red and her eyes wide as she looks from Uther to Arthur as though asking him to speak. Say something, stop this, be a true prince and defend his friend— but his tongue is still in his mouth. He’s as guilty as Morgana’s ever made him feel and he cannot find the words to fix that. 

“Let’s move on from such dull topics,” Uther says, dismissing death like a fly on his glass. “Lord Julian, you were mentioning something about this year’s harvest?”

Arthur loses track of the conversation as Morgana turns her head and leaves. Anger had caused her to flee but, here, it keeps Arthur in his seat. Once, he might have known how to follow and speak with her— how to ease her temper with a joke or a promise to fulfill some quest. But those were days where they never knew the one on the pyre, days where he could hold her and know that, really, he wasn’t to blame for her tears.

He watches her go, weaving through the crowd until she’s escaped to the doorway. A few nobles try to stop her, try to talk with her, but she ignores them all as easily as Uther had ignored her wishes to leave Merlin alive. Because wasn’t she the one Uther had to lock away as Merlin was led to his death? Wasn’t she the one who screamed for mercy or justice, who told Uther she could never love him again if he took her friend?

How had she made that sort of stubbornness look so easy? And how could she look past the betrayal of Merlin’s magic, at all?

Beside him, Uther talks about weather and fields and crops as though the weight of murder is nothing on his shoulders. He’s done what a good king should, he’d say. He’s protected his kingdom and he’ll rest easily because of it.

It stuns Arthur how sick that thought makes him.

In his chest, anger hardens into something more— something tangible, something he feels he could reach if he cut into the skin and bone. It burns; it chills. It grabs hold of his ribs and whispers that it’s part of him now— it’s here to stay.

Outside, the rain becomes a storm. Outside, thunder roars. Distantly, Arthur hears his father mutter about how this sort of weather doesn’t make sense; it’s not meant to rain for another few months.

But Arthur turns his gaze to the window and watches water splash against the glass. Right now, lightning and all its fright is the only thing he understands.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur wanders back to his room like a man without a compass. After the warmth and glow of the feast, the corridors feel cold and lonely. He takes his time with his steps, the sound of rain still keeping time with his breaths.

With his head down, he doesn’t notice Morgana at the end of the corridor until a flash of lightning illuminates her thinking face. 

Arthur pauses. She doesn’t seem to have noticed him yet.

Should he speak to her now, he wonders? Is this a sign? It wouldn’t be hard to call her name, to ask her what’s wrong, to cringe when he realizes he already knows the answer. But that would be a start, wouldn’t it? That would be enough.

Morgana stares out at the rain, her eyes on something past the city walls, and toys with her bottom lip as she thinks, lipstick smudging against her fingers. 

Arthur could interrupt those thoughts, interpret them. Arthur could try to win back her friendship.

But he could also make things worse. He could bring her resentment to hatred, and he could never have her kindness back.

He values Morgana too much to risk that.

At least, that’s what he tells himself as he turns a corner and finishes the walk to his room.

When he’s back in his chambers, he knows that this is the part where Merlin would have said something.

Merlin was always so damn observant, wasn’t he? He’d notice arguments without ever being present for one, finding the cracks in relationships and furrowing his brow at them.

_ “You should talk with her _ ,” he’d say at this point.  _ “You know you’re both on the same side.” _

Maybe he’d say it in a gentle tone or maybe he’d work it into one of his jokes— with Merlin, tenderness and teasing always seemed to be the same thing. And Arthur would always reject that advice until it was nearing on the edge of too late, a point where he can listen to Merlin without much of his pride stinging because of it.

So lost in his thoughts he is, he nearly forgets why the servant who comes to prepare him for bed isn’t Merlin. No, because it’s someone good at his job. Someone respectful. Someone quiet.

Merlin was never quiet.

So what would he say about Morgana? What would he do about the tension Arthur feels with Gwen? Whose side would he be on? How would he fix this unfixable problem next?

Arthur almost feels foolish. Merlin had solved so many of his problems. How had anyone ever believed his idiocy was anything other than a mask?

Arthur knows it’s because he had been reckless before. He’d never considered a consequence, allowing obliviousness to fill his friendship. 

Now, though, he wrecks upon the thought that he never knew Merlin, at all. Because wouldn’t it be easier to think that all that— all that advice, all that loyalty— had just been a trick? Something to get closer to the royal family, waiting for the right time to strike, to prove that magic is evil? Gods, even if he didn’t plan on killing them, he could have at least been trying to manipulate them?

But, try as he might, Arthur can’t think of a time where Merlin ever tried to sway him towards magic.

Perhaps that’s a trick of his memory. Perhaps that’s Merlin messing with his head.

Arthur’s fairly certain it isn’t. In fact, he’s rather certain he’s closer to the truth than he’s ever been. A light, just out of reach; a fire that doesn’t yet burn.

“Sire?”

Arthur turns.

“Where should I put this?”

The servant holds the dream book in his hand, having picked it up from Arthur’s bed. 

“Oh,” Arthur says, his heart picking up its pace just enough to remind him that, despite his mental journey, magic is still illegal. Magic is still wrong. “You can give it to me, and then you’re dismissed.”

The servant nods respectfully and walks towards the door, passing the book to Arthur on his way. 

Once he’s gone, Arthur looks down at the book in his hands. After everything, it seems as though it should weigh more. 

His father would want to see this book. His father would want it recorded as evidence of Merlin’s treachery. His father would have it burned in the same place Merlin was killed. This book, and every other magical item Merlin had said was hidden in his room. Floorboards torn up, beds turned over— every bit of that room placed in a fire big enough to destroy a lifetime of memories.

Arthur knows a prince should order this done. Arthur knows that, if he hasn’t given the order by now, he never will.

Arthur looks down at the book, flipping it open until he sees the letters scrawled by Merlin’s hand— and he finds he doesn’t care to see this book destroyed.

He doesn’t care if none of it is destroyed, at all.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

The place in Arthur’s dreams is a place uncluttered and free of associations. He doesn’t have to think about being a prince or a knight or his father’s son. Caught in a place that’s nothing but trees and grass and wind, he’s free to be whatever he wants. 

Caught in this place with Merlin, he’s free to be happy in ways he can’t when he’s awake. It might be a void; it might be an escape.

When Merlin smiles as he greets him that night, Arthur doesn’t quite care what it is.

They talk of nothing, at first, sitting in the grass and toying with the blue flowers beneath their fingers as Arthur curses about how he hates dressing nicely for feasts, and how boring they all are. Merlin laughs, probably remembering the problems he had getting Arthur properly dressed for such things, and it’s all so damn easy.

It’s easier than it should be to talk with Merlin as though nothing happened, as though this is just a trip away from Camelot and they’ll return to normal in just a few days. It’s easy— and so Arthur does it. 

He’s complaining about his new servant— “he makes jokes about brass”— and Merlin’s smiling and that thing in Arthur’s chest feels as though, if he looks beneath his shirt, he’ll see his skin glow.

“Sure, he sounds bad, but at least you don’t have to deal with nobility when they’re visiting,” Merlin says. “They were always worse than the servants ever could be.”

It’s a continuation of their joke, but Arthur can only think of the cruel words passed around the banquet like a theme they had to follow. Arthur can only think of those who stood around and did nothing while that scar he sees now on Merlin’s neck was made.

“Yeah,” he says. “I suppose they are.”

Merlin raises an eyebrow at the shift in Arthur’s tone but says nothing about it. Arthur’s grateful; he wants their light conversations to continue. He wants Merlin’s smile, his jokes, his company. He wants so much that he didn’t know he wanted.

He wants Merlin back in his life, no matter the risk of wanting that.

“Let me ask you something,” Arthur says slowly, dropping his gaze to the curve of Merlin’s shoulder. “I was wondering what to do with Morgana.”

Merlin turns to better face Arthur, and it’s this small move that has Arthur giving everything away. Morgana’s coldness and her fights with Uther; her harsh gazes and the fear he has that there’s something more painful, more damning, underneath. He talks about how she always looks one move away from betraying Uther, from leaving and joining those they’ve been taught to hate. He says he’s afraid of losing her. He says he doesn’t know what to do if he does.

And he says these things because Merlin’s just in his head, right? No one will ever know what Arthur’s confessed. And if Merlin gives his thoughts, Arthur doesn’t have to share them. Arthur doesn’t have to follow them or agree he— 

He wants to agree. He wants whatever Merlin has to give because, frankly, nothing else but Merlin’s eyes makes sense.

When Arthur finishes, his voice growing hoarse with emotion as he recounts the words shared at the banquet, Merlin’s silence almost scares him. He’s given himself away, he knows; he’s painted in detail how Morgana’s the only one mourning Merlin, how she’s the only one angry that it happened. She’s the only one who openly rejected the idea that Merlin could be anything other than innocent; not even Arthur can pretend to have done that.

But then Arthur looks into Merlin’s eyes and, in those eyes, he finds the simplicity of understanding.

“Morgana’s anger is not your fault,” he says gently, reassuringly. “She fears loneliness more than she lets anyone know. I’ve already failed her in that. She lashes out in rage because it’s easier than letting people know she’s hurting. You can’t blame her for that.”

Arthur scoffs. “But I can blame her for her stubbornness.”

Merlin smiles and Arthur feels like a child, like Merlin’s taking a crown from his head and relieving him of its weight.

“Well,” Merlin says, considering, “she can’t be any worse than you.”

“Hey!” Arthur says, but he laughs as he says it. 

“Oh, you know it’s true,” Merlin says, a light in his eyes. “I dare you to tell me it’s not.”

Arthur draws himself up, shoulders back and chest puffed out. “It most certainly is not!”

And Merlin laughs at Arthur’s exaggerated tone and, gods, it could be just like before. If Merlin’s smile didn’t seem so sad, if Arthur wasn’t afraid of drawing close, it would be just like before.

“You know,” Merlin says, something in his tone twisting just enough to have Arthur paying closer attention, his eyebrow raised, “you’re not the first prat I’ve dealt with, but you are the worst.”

Arthur knows an opening when he sees one. Has Merlin ever hinted at the people in his past before?

“Really?” Arthur asks, allowing Merlin to shrug and carry on.

“Well,” Merlin says. “Maybe.”

Arthur pretends to be offended but he knows better than to interrupt Merlin’s thoughts now.

“Magic wasn’t illegal in Ealdor but you wouldn’t know that from the way most people acted.” Merlin runs his finger through the grass as he speaks, eyes down but voice steady. “I was still a child when my mother taught me that I needed to hide it but, well, at that point, it was already too late. My magic was already as shy as an unbroken colt. It just couldn’t be tamed, no matter how much I wanted to make it stop.”

Merlin pauses, eyes unfocused even as he places a familiar smile on his face— a smile that says he’s hurt, he’s aching, he’s sad. A smile that says he’ll smile for Arthur anyway, because it’s easier than talking about the things that would make him cry.

“People always threatened to burn me,” Merlin says. “Sometimes it was a joke; more often, though, it was their way of reminding me that I wasn’t normal. I grew up terrified of burning.”

Merlin trails off and, whether there’s room for Arthur to speak, there’s a question Arthur hates to ask.

“Do you really think they all hated you? Or were they just afraid?” It’s impossible to meet Merlin’s eyes as he asks this because he knows it’s a cruel thing to ask. Still, he is his father’s son; he needs to know if people can really be so awful to someone so kind. “If it was all they were taught about magic, can they really be blamed?”

“Yes, they can.” Merlin doesn’t hesitate with his answer. “Whatever they knew of magic shouldn’t have mattered when I knew that they knew me. My friendship with everyone there, despite everything they said, should have been enough to at least show them that not all magic can be wrong. Or would you say magic is evil, no matter the wielder?”

Could Arthur call Merlin evil? This is the servant who cast magic over him as he slept, a taste like lightning still in the back of Arthur’s mouth when he thinks of it, but is he evil? 

No one who’s evil looks the way Merlin did when Arthur turned his back on him. No one who was ever just a traitor could ever sound as desperate and broken as Merlin did when Arthur let the guards drag him away. The hurt that bled through Merlin’s eyes and voice in every moment between his capture and his death— Arthur knows all of it was real, the way he knows when a wound has been made too deep to heal.

But, still— the lies. Arthur’s hands tremble like grass as he folds them together, and he makes some small humming noise rather than an answer. Because he can’t answer that Merlin is good while he thinks of every time magic has worked against his family and home. He can’t say that Merlin is right when Arthur has lost loved ones to the terror that is sorcery.

He can’t think of Merlin’s golden eyes without thinking of the fear he felt when he first saw them.

Merlin turns his head with a soft sigh. Not frustrated or annoyed, simply tired.

“You’ll be waking soon,” he says, and he stands. He looks down at Arthur, waiting for him to do the same.

“Why are you here?” Arthur asks. “You mentioned once that you’re here to protect me but you never said more than that.”

Merlin frowns, the smallest of turns in the corner of his lips, and kneels before Arthur after a brief hesitation.

“How much do you actually want to know, Arthur?” He asks, his voice nothing more than a gentle brush of wind.

The question, though, chills Arthur, no matter how warm the voice that says it. He tries to answer that he wants to know everything— that he deserves to know— but the words stick in his throat, afraid to come out.

Merlin smiles, warming Arthur once more. “I thought as much. You’re not ready.”

“Oh, come on,” Arthur says, feeling too much like a child. “There must be something you can tell me.”

Merlin’s lips press together as he lowers back into a seated position, his hands toying with each other as he thinks. He leans towards Arthur, his back to the sun.

“I can tell you to be kind to Morgana,” he says, each word slow and unsure. 

Arthur’s eyebrows knit together. 

“What? Why?” He asks. “You said that before but why is it so important? What is she going to do?”

Merlin reaches out, his fingers just barely brushing the back of Arthur’s hand. Still, there’s light in his touch, a heat brushing against him and sparking across every nerve end. Arthur and Merlin’s eyes meet, and it’s like Merlin is journeying into Arthur as he stares at him— traveling down his spine and veins, searching every valley and peering into every pit Arthur feels himself drowning in.

“It’s not what she’s going to do but, rather, what she already can do,” he says, his eyes refusing to let Arthur look away. “She has magic, Arthur, and I’m afraid of what will happen if she thinks herself truly alone.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur swears the place in his dreams is more real than any other place in his world. So, when he goes to sleep the next night and sees Merlin waiting for him, it feels like waking up. This world is the real one, it must be. It’s quiet and it’s calm and it’s kind. It’s real because—

Because the world Arthur just came from cannot be anything other than a lie.

Because he didn’t believe Merlin about Morgana— how could he? They were raised together for as long as he could remember, Morgana his closest friend and ally in everything they did. She may be cold, at times, and she may be stubborn, but she’d never be a traitor. She’d never go that far.

But—

But, today, Arthur had followed her. He’d paid closer attention. And he’d heard her murmurs with Gwen in the halls, her fear of nightmares and how they always seem to come true. He’d been in the room as she’d fought against Uther’s arrest of yet another Druid, yet another magic-user, and he’d heard the pain in her voice as she shouted— in front of guards and witnesses and everyone else— that he was guiltier than any sorcerer he’s ever killed.

He was behind her in the corridor, peering in through Gaius’ door, as she cried and asked for help.

As she told Gaius that she thought she had magic.

Arthur doesn’t realize that he’s falling to his knees until he feels Merlin’s hands at his arms, steadying him. He doesn’t realize how sick he feels, how the world seems to spin around him, until blue eyes anchor him down— until Merlin calls his name and asks him what’s wrong.

Arthur can’t respond. He can barely breathe. 

Merlin leaves his vision for just a moment and Arthur focuses, instead, on how the sun falls across the meadow, the long shadows of flowers and trees making patterns on the gently shifting grass. He never knows if it’s morning here or afternoon, if it’s early evening or something else. Time doesn’t exist— trust doesn’t, either, so what does it matter?

Eventually, Merlin’s helped Arthur to sit. He’s back in front of him, his hand still rubbing Arthur’s arm.

And, then, Arthur breathes one question. “Why would she turn to magic?”

Realization startles in Merlin’s eyes before settling into understanding.

“She may not have had a choice. It may have been with her when she was born.” A pause, a breath. “Like me.”

Arthur sucks in a sharp breath.

“You were—”

“I was born with magic,” Merlin says, letting his hand fall from Arthur’s arm to rest against his wrist instead. “I’ve had it my entire life.”

“No, that— that can’t be true. Because—”

Because, if it’s true, then Merlin was killed for something he couldn’t control. 

He’s conscious of the way Merlin’s hand feels against his skin but, past that, the world may as well be crumbling. He can only sense the way his heart is failing to pound within his chest— it must be. Why else is there this sharp pain, this stuttered step of his heartbeat? Merlin holds his wrist, no longer just touching it, and Merlin is suddenly more than just a friend Arthur knew. He’s someone who had secrets he had to keep, tragedies in his life because of a thing within him he couldn’t make leave. He’s someone Arthur doesn’t recognize but, yet, he’s still someone Arthur yearns to understand.

“But you stayed in Camelot,” Arthur says, struggling to fit all his thoughts into something as simple as words. “Why?”

“Because,” Merlin says with a smile and small laugh, “of you. I stayed for you.”

“What?” Arthur pulls back. If Merlin’s going to look at him like— if he’s going to say things like that— he can’t be touching him. He can’t be any closer than he already is.

Merlin doesn’t seem to notice, the ocean of his eyes deepening and circling around something like a ship in the distance, focusing on a promise Arthur can’t reach.

“Because I believe you’re meant for great things and I was honored to try and help you reach them,” he says, looking at Arthur once again. “You’re the Once and Future King, the only one able to unite the lands of Albion. One day, you’ll understand what that means. I can only hope I helped shape that path, no matter how brief our time together.”

“You stayed because I’m destined for something?” Arthur asks.

“No, I stayed because you’re you,” Merlin answers. “The destiny was just a bonus after a while.”

It’s a statement only Merlin would ever make, a statement like  _ I’m happy to be your servant until the day I die _ and Arthur doesn’t know how to feel about that. Oh, sure, he knows that it hits him in the chest with a force that could break his ribs, could stop his heart, could leave a bruise in the shape of Merlin. He knows something fills his body and mind at the sound of Merlin’s sincerity and he doesn’t know if it means he’s going to cry or laugh.

Either way, being angry is easier than doing any of that. He doesn’t understand what else his mind is doing and, for all he knows, it could last no longer than this moment. He’s never felt this before, though he imagines he once read stories about people who did. And Merlin’s looking at him like he’s a story, talking about him like he’s a character he fell for.

Arthur turns his head away.

“It doesn’t matter,” he forces himself to say, not watching to see if Merlin smiles fondly at the petulant tone or draws away from the harsh words. “You still lied for years and you still broke the law over and over. You didn’t trust me and— and— You didn’t  _ trust me _ .”

Arthur chokes on those last words and he shakes so hard he’s sure he’ll fall apart. 

Despite everything his father’s taught him, Arthur’s always trusted far too easily. He likes to believe that everyone has good intentions, that people who call him friend truly mean it. He likes to reciprocate loyalty to the fullest extent, no matter how easily the other person might turn their back on any oath they gave. He believes in people and, again and again, he’s proven that no one believes in him in return.

When Merlin places a hand on his and Arthur looks back up, he’s greeted with a sad smile.

“You watched them chop my head off when you found out about my magic after years of friendship,” he says gently. “What do you honestly think would have happened if you had learned the truth any sooner?”

Time had not eased Arthur’s fear of magic but it had brought him closer to Merlin. Without that closeness, without that foundation of friendship, he would have never felt the hurt that he feels now but, maybe, he would have also never taken the time to consider why magic scares him like this. 

The field, for a moment, is quiet. The wind blows around them with a sweet scent of grass and petals, warm and kind and here. Arthur sighs and the wind gently pulls the tired breath away.

“When I was still a child, a nurse of mine had been found guilty of practicing magic.” It’s not a memory he’s shared often, if at all. It’s not a person he likes to think of, if only because of how the story goes. For every good thought, there’s a worse one waiting behind it— so close, he’s found, that they’ve nearly become one and the same. “I never thought her to be evil. She was good, warm and kind and always around. They caught her using magic to warm my bed during a storm. That was the first time I fought my father about an execution. I knew magic was bad but I also knew that she couldn’t be all the awful things they said. I knew she didn’t deserve to die.”

Arthur pauses, taking a steadying breath. Merlin watches on, silent reassurance in his gaze.

“My father sent me on a hunting trip with the knights, then, telling me he’d wait until our return for the trial to proceed. Imagine how proud I felt, convincing my father to listen to me.” He’s not sure if the sound he makes is a laugh or a sob but, either way, it chokes his next words. “They burnt her while I was gone. Arrested her and tortured her because he was certain my arguments weren’t my own. She must have put me under some sort of spell. That was the first time I truly understood my father’s hatred for magic. I had seen madness, I thought, and I swore never to follow in that path.”

The wind is still kind, brushing against his heated skin as Merlin does the same, taking his hand.

“The next week, the knights from the patrol— my friends and mentors— were killed by the woman’s sister. Magic had torn them apart from the inside out,” he says. Even now, he can see the broken bodies, their terror-stricken faces still fresh in his mind. His father had walked him through the infirmary, forced him to stare into each wounded corpse, reminding him how terrible magic truly is. “Since then, I’ve never known a magic that wasn’t cruel. I was never given any further evidence that magic could be kind.”

No magic but for his nurse’s warmth and the comfort in which he slept under heated blankets and soft pillows. 

The odd thing, then, is that Merlin’s magic— the brief bits of it that Arthur felt— are almost reminiscent of a feeling just like that. So…

“So, can you show me your magic?” Arthur asks this in a quiet voice, a frightened voice. 

“What?” Merlin asks, eyes widening in his own hesitation, his own slight fear.

Still, Arthur leans forward, not realizing how much he needs this until he’s saying this.

“Just a bit,” he says, not admitting to himself that he’s pleading. “I just want a sign that it’s not evil. Because I’ve ever only known dark magic, magic meant to hurt or kill. Show me that it’s more than that, I know you can.”

Even as he says it, he knows it’s more than that— more than needing facts and evidence against the evil curse of magic, it’s a curiosity that eats into him with an endless void. He’s heard about Merlin’s life, his past, He’s learned about his magic. But he wants to see it. 

He wants to learn how to trust it next.

“Come on, now. You shouldn’t need proof to know I’m not evil.” Merlin cuts off Arthur’s next objection with a raised hand, smiling softly and shaking his head. “I know you didn’t say that but, well, same thing. Anyway, I can’t show you my magic right now. Not anymore than I already am.”

“What do you mean?” Arthur asks. 

Merlin looks around them, gesturing with a small nod. 

“Because this entire meadow is made of magic,” he says. And, well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? Arthur feels as though he may have always been sitting in this field with Merlin; it’s always felt somewhat familiar. “All my magic is put into this space but don’t worry. I promise that, sooner than you know, you will have seen what my magic can do.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

“I’ll be resting early this evening. Good night.”

It’s a common phrase, one Arthur doesn’t mean to ease into his conversations as he turns from dinner before it’s through or walks through the corridors without pausing for messengers or guards. Night means more to him than the day, sleep calling like an old friend waiting just beyond the shadows. If anything, his waking days are more like dreams and fog than his nights are; while he faces each morning with a sense of loss, he’s greeted by familiar friendship and a stupid grin each time he shuts his eyes at the end of each day.

Sometimes, he wonders if anyone has noticed. He’s slept better with each day, the dark shadows beneath his eyes lightening until he’s the bright-eyed prince sitting through meetings and reports without slouching against his seat. In the past, though, his thoughts had been turned towards regret and hurt; now, his attention looks to daydreams of the night before or the night to come. And his servants, of course, must have noticed how he’s refused to ever wake on time— not, as Merlin would say when Arthur brings it up, that that’s anything new.

His nights are now filled with jokes and teases like this. Banter and playful bickering, nicknames and memories of everything that should have never faded away.

It’s a second chance at friendship and Arthur’s not keen on letting go again. 

So, he tells Merlin about what happens during the days, complaining about weather or a particularly boring meeting as they pick at grass and turn their backs to the ever present wind. He asks for advice on issues pertaining to smaller villages, listens when Merlin brings up his life in Ealdor. He jokes and laughs when Merlin jokes back. He tells him about the people Merlin asks about— Gaius and Gwen and Morgana and the girl in the market who fixed his boots and the young knight Merlin was hoping would become great. 

He never realized there were so many people Merlin cared about but, somehow, it’s not a surprise. Merlin, after all, seems as though he has enough care for everyone except himself.

Still, Arthur pays a bit more attention to the people Merlin points out. He buys buckles from the girl in the market. He helps the young knight find a sword that better fits his swing. He picks herbs for Gaius. He sends flowers to Gwen’s home. He delivers Morgana her sleep tonic, wishing her good night even as she watches him with her suspicious gaze.

It’s almost strange to be so aware of the people around him. It’s almost like looking at the world through Merlin’s eyes.

It’s a beautiful way to look at it, if he forgets how the world looked back at Merlin once it saw him for who he was.

This. This is what his father notices. This is why his father sends him out on more patrols, out on more menial tasks each day. As if being away from these people can clear his mind; as if there’s anything in the woods that could distract him from his thoughts.

It’s on one such patrol that Arthur comes across those flowers again. Small. Blue. 

The irises for his dreams. 

He doesn’t have the time to study them— not with the knights around him— but he carries them in his mind until he has the chance to speak with Merlin again.

Arthur’s lying next to these flowers in his dream, propped up on his elbow and brushing his fingers over the petals, when he decides to ask.

“I see these flowers in Camelot. Those exact flowers,” he says, pushing himself to a sitting position. Merlin’s not looking at him, gaze on the flowers Arthur’s pointed out. “Are you sure you can’t use magic outside here?”

“I’m certain,” Merlin says. It’s without hesitation but he still won’t meet Arthur’s eyes.

Arthur frowns. “Come on, there must be an explanation.”

“Or it can just be coincidence,” Merlin looks up. “Listen, I know you want to see my magic but, honestly, Arthur? I worry if you really know what that means.”

Arthur’s eyebrows furrow together. “It’s magic. What else could it mean?”

“It means that this world is magic but, somehow, that’s not enough for you,” Merlin says with a frown of his own. “Do you want to see something bigger than this? Fire and lightning? Are you sure you wouldn’t hate me again if you saw something like that?”

“Again?” Arthur asks. “I didn’t hate  _ you _ , I just—”

“You hated magic,” Merlin says, rather monotonously. “ _ Hate  _ magic, actually.”

“Are you ever going to give me a chance to change from that?” Arthur snaps, his entire body suddenly stiff. Things had been going well— perfectly, in fact— and he doesn’t want to go back to this. He can’t go back to the place where he’s only ever thinking of Merlin and magic as one and the same, where it’s always a fight and one step further from each other with each word. “You want me to trust magic. How am I supposed to do that if you don’t trust me with it? How am I supposed to trust you if you never trusted me, at all?”

“And we’re back to that, are we?” Merlin asks, turning his head away. “It was never about trusting you, it was about—”

“About being afraid I’d kill you?” 

“It was about making sure you didn’t have to choose between me and your father.” Merlin’s eyes blaze as he stands, looking down at Arthur with a gaze that might as well be fire from how heated they are. “I know how you were raised, Arthur. I know you wouldn’t have been able to fight against him, not after everything he’s taught you.”

“He’s taught me how to be a good king,” Arthur says, pushing to his feet and taking a step towards Merlin. Merlin doesn’t step back; the wind seems to shift and he’s no longer a servant, no longer the fool Arthur so easily sees him as. “He makes mistakes, sure, but he’s only ever wanted Camelot to succeed.”

“And do you want your success to come on the back of a genocide?” Merlin asks. It’s far from cruel, simply a question that burns Arthur from the inside out. “Do you want your kingdom to be reliant on fear and paranoia?”

“Would you have me give them false hope instead?” Arthur asks. “Let them think we can have that kind of peace after years of this war?”

“It wasn’t the magic users who made it a war,” Merlin says, gaze and voice level. Arthur’s hands become fists; his breath is sharp in his throat.

“The king would have your head for saying that.”

“He’s already taken it for worse.”

The wind and time itself take Arthur captive. He chills; he freezes so suddenly it’s like his breaths are cracking in his chest.

Right.

Merlin’s… 

He’s gone. He’s here, sure, but he’s only here. A specter. A ghost. A brief memory to meet with each night for a chat and nothing more.

How easy it’s been to forget that this is all it is. That his jokes with Merlin last only under the shade of night, that his smiles are limited to dreams. With each conversation, Arthur’s slipped into the safety of pretending— pretending that this is the real world, this is the right world, this is everything he can accept when the daylight tells him it’s wrong. 

But he can only ever see Merlin in this meadow. No hunts together. No adventures or quests behind the king’s back. 

Nothing more than whatever happens here— and, even then, all Arthur’s done here is talk. Talk and fight and wake with the protection of keeping it all in his mind.

“Sorry,” Merlin’s saying— how long has he been saying that? “Sorry, I shouldn’t have made a fight out of it. You should go. You should wake up. I should let you wake up, it’s almost morning anyway. I’ll see you—”

What— he’ll see him when? When night next falls? When Arthur’s soothed his guilt and they can pretend this part never happened? Like waking up and falling asleep are the beginnings and endings to single meetings, never to be discussed again?

No.

Because, Arthur realizes, there’s so much more left to discuss.

When Arthur pulls him into a kiss that neither of them had been expecting, it’s like the wind makes space for their reactions. Arthur’s hand just barely clutching Merlin’s shirt, Merlin’s lips parted from the sentence that had been cut off— time pauses.

And, then, Merlin lifts a hand to Arthur’s cheek and he kisses back.

It’s something that should start rough— desperate and panicked and filled with the realization that this is everything they were building towards when Merlin was alive. The thing that was between each glance across the council room, Merlin waiting with a small smile as Arthur lost interest in anything other than the way Merlin would shake his head at every stupid remark. The thing that drove Arthur to his knees when Merlin drank from that damned poisoned chalice— the thing that raged inside him when Merlin was pulled away in chains. 

It’s this thing that sighs and brings them to a gentler touch. It’s this thing that buckles Arthur’s knees, this thing that wraps around him and lowers them to their knees in the grass as they part.

“I’m sorry.” Words that aren’t often comfortable in Arthur’s mouth slip out, as soft as petals as he shuts his eyes. “I didn’t— I don’t know what I—”

“Of course you didn’t know.” And Merlin sounds like he’s almost laughing, like he’s almost fond. His hand is still on Arthur’s cheek. “That’s why you have me, you oaf.”

And Arthur’s definitely laughing when Merlin pulls him in for another kiss.

This meadow that’s become theirs, this field with nothing but them, shrinks and expands with the shape of Arthur’s lungs as he breathes Merlin in and out— wanting more, giving more, never finding quite enough as his hands search for proof that Merlin’s here. He may not be alive, he may not be in his world, but he’s  _ here _ . He’s here and the mouth against his, the hands at his face— this proves it.

Arthur opens his eyes to Merlin’s blue gaze. The world seems calmer when this is all he can see.

They don’t speak at first, their breaths the only sounds they share, and Arthur finds himself moving— slow enough he could never pretend it’s an accident.

Merlin’s neckerchief is soft and the tie at the back is loose, slipping easily between Arthur’s fingers as he undoes it. He watches Merlin as he eases it from his neck, a gentle kind of permission given before Arthur pulls the scarf away.

And, beneath the scarf, his fingers touch the scar.

It’s something he shouldn’t be allowed to do but Merlin tips his head anyway, allowing Arthur’s fingertips to brush against the manifestation of his decisions, the proof of his wrongs and the pain he’s dealt. He wasn’t the one to lower the blade— he was barely the one to give the orders— but he was the one who led them here. By his anger and his hurt, or by his refusal to ever question his father— this meadow is what he’s made.

Merlin takes Arthur’s face in his hands. He’s not quite smiling when he leans in, almost as if to press another kiss to his lips. 

Arthur doesn’t understand how Merlin can touch him so delicately when he wears the signs of violence across his skin. Still, he leans towards Merlin, lips searching for something to make this feel right.

But Merlin stops him, a smile in his eyes.

“Arthur,” he says with a voice like wind. “I think it’s about time you wake up.”

And the edges of the meadow begin to fade.


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur tells himself that he needs to see Merlin again, that he needs to speak with him and be with him and discuss what happened the last time he dreamed. Because that dream was like the magic Merlin promised him he’d see, something thrumming and alive beneath his skin even as he walks the grounds of a castle that would sooner see magic choked and killed.

Perhaps it’s the last detail, the fact of where he is, that makes it easier to ignore the warmth pressed around his heart when he thinks of Merlin in his arms and against his mouth. He won’t lie to himself and say he wants to forget it, just as he wouldn’t lie to himself and say it’s something he can truly have. 

Merlin’s magic and, well, Merlin’s a dream. And, as nice as a dream may be to hold and kiss, it’s not something to bring into his waking life.

Even if he hears Merlin’s voice laughing through his mind at yet another meeting.

Even if he sees the color of Merlin’s eyes in the sky above his men as they train.

Even if he brings a hand to his lips when he’s alone, pacing the castle halls, and imagines he can still feel Merlin’s breath there.

Arthur huffs to himself, dropping his hand back to his side. Of all the dilemmas he’s faced, this is the one that’s left him with absolutely no idea what to do.

Perhaps he’ll go back to not sleeping. That way, he won’t have to face Merlin and ask him just how exactly they’re going to figure this out.

Of course, there’s the fact that Merlin can, apparently, make him fall asleep on command, so that one’s out. And it’s not like he wants to entirely ignore Merlin anyway— the thought of not seeing him again aches.

Arthur swears to himself beneath his breath, lost in his thoughts as he wanders into the lesser-used area of the castle, hoping for some peace to help ease his mind. He supposes he can look through Gaius’ dream book again but what good would that do? Remind him that Merlin planned this all out and hope for the best? Push him closer to frustration with this entire ordeal? Make him feel even more useless than he already does? No, no thank you.

As Arthur wanders further into the castle, he swallows and struggles for a line of thought that doesn’t burn through his mind with complex questions and a shortage of solutions. Of course, that’s sticking to the answers given by his mind and logic; the response thrumming in his chest is nothing more than a burst of _Merlin Merlin Merlin_ _Mer—_

“Emrys…”

Arthur pauses when another voice echoes through the corridor, coming from one of the empty rooms; or, what is supposed to be an empty room. It’s not a voice he recognizes— not a name or word, either— but he stills all the same, listening for the voice again. The bit he’d heard had sounded young, childish, and it lingers on the edge of Arthur’s mind like a blade balanced upon its point, prepared to fall in either direction. 

He takes a step towards the door, his body cold as he does so. No more sounds come from behind it but, somehow, the hair on the back of his neck still raises; something like a river rushing through his veins takes hold as he reaches forward and—

“Arthur?” Morgana’s voice cuts through any tension, pulling Arthur back like a thing on a leash. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m not,” Arthur says, his mind not quite catching up as quickly as he’d like. “I mean, I’m here, obviously, but I’m not doing anything.”

Morgana’s eyebrows come together. “Right. You know you’re horrible at lying?”

“Thank you for that,” Arthur says. His heart pounds in his chest, a way it never has with Morgana before. Is that because this is their first typical conversation since Merlin’s arrest? Or is it because of what he knows about her now? “And what about you? I imagine you just like wandering about in areas no one else goes to?”

“Can’t be places no one else goes to if you’re here.” And does she sound a bit put off that he’s around? Like he’s truly intruding into some place he shouldn’t be? He nearly takes a step back at the thought, something constricting around his throat.

“Some of us take walks alone to clear our minds,” Morgana says, as snappy as ever. “You would actually have to have a mind in order to understand that, I’m sure.”

It’s nothing out of the ordinary for her to say, though it’s typically paired with a more playful tone than this bitter snark, but it still places Arthur on edge. Morgana would never really hate him, he’s sure. But, then, he never thought she’d really have magic, either.

Is that something he should bring up? Merlin said not to let her feel alone, but—

“Prince Arthur.” A servant, a messenger, someone who Arthur can’t speak freely in front of. Morgana jumps at his presence, the man red-cheeked from searching the grounds for him, no doubt. “The king has asked for you.”

Of course he has. Arthur groans internally and nearly looks to Morgana to help him come up with some excuse to get out of what must be another useless meeting. Morgana, though, has slipped away, and he’s left to follow the messenger who’d come for him.

They walk in silence— the kind of silence that wraps around Arthur’s head and squeezes until he’s certain he’s going to be sick. Nothing but the patter of feet against stone, nothing but his thoughts beating against his skull.

Nothing, and then the drag of chains across the floor.

Arthur looks up at the sound— curious, at first, and then afraid. Curious, because he hadn’t realized he’d been walking towards the cells.

Afraid, because the boy in the chains is the druid boy he’d let get away.

He’s bruised, now, and the chains must weigh more than he does soaking wet. His head hangs low and the guards pulling him along have iron-like grips on his upper arms, as though he’s in any condition to get away. Arthur’s growing nausea heightens, his headache pinches until he sees spots in his vision.

“What—” He wants to ask what’s going on, but the question is taken when he sees the line of druids following the boy into the cells. Dozens of them— men, women, children.

Dozens. Beaten. Bruised. Chained.

Arthur can only stare.

When the boy from before looks over at him, Arthur’s sure his face betrays his confusion for a second— it couldn’t have been longer than a moment, his eyebrows pinched and his frown deep, but the boy’s lips part as though he means to speak out.

Arthur turns, knowing how the guards will react should the boy say anything, at all. 

By ignoring him, Arthur’s helping them both, he’s sure.

He follows the messenger the last few steps to his father, Uther overseeing the prisoners with a slight nod of approval each time one is locked behind a cell.

“Father,” Arthur says, pushing forward to stand beside him. “What is the meaning of this?”

“The druids,” Uther responds without looking away. “They’ve grown closer to the city walls. These are just a fraction of the masses waiting in the woods. Waiting for an attack against us, no doubt.”

Arthur’s hands twitch as he folds his arms across his chest, fingers digging deeply into his own skin as he frowns. “Are you certain?”

Uther’s gaze is sharp when he looks back over at Arthur. “Why else would they gather?”

Arthur stares back at his father’s hardened face, his mind answering in his ways his father could never condone. 

“What do they say they’re here for?” He asks.

“Some for a boy named Mordred,” Uther says. “Others for one named Emrys.”

Mordred and Emrys. Arthur knows the boy they speak of, his chest still tight with fear when he remembers standing in the back of the tunnels and waiting for Merlin to keep them from being caught. 

And Emrys— a name as unfamiliar as any stranger’s, if not for the voice that had whispered it today.

“And will none of them explain what they mean by that?” Arthur asks, doing his best to keep his tone even.

His father gives a quick shake of the head. 

“Of course not,” he says. “I expect you to figure it out.”

After everything, it’s something Arthur would have done even without the order. Still, he nods and swears to do his best.

“I won’t fail you,” he says, a phrase his father knows well from him. Uther nods, gives one last withering look to the prisoners and walks away.

Arthur doesn’t need to start investigating today; they’re still chaining druids up, after all, and if he delays, that’s another day for them to live. So, he glances over the cells once more, the two names echoing through his mind.

All sounds and thoughts, though, pause when his eyes fall upon the cell Merlin had been left in.

He hadn’t come back for Merlin, not the way he returned for a young boy he never knew. He hadn’t swayed under Morgana’s pressure and pleading again. And, gods, how Morgana begged. How she accused him of betrayal, how she told him he’d never understand it as well as he believed if he thought Merlin was capable of such a thing.

Arthur, like his father, had thought her mad with emotion. And he’d thought Merlin a fool for turning on him.

He’d walked away from both, feeling simultaneously better and worse because of the way his back had turned. At least he didn’t have to listen to Morgana’s cries. At least he didn’t have to see Merlin’s lips say his name.

This time, though, staring at an empty cell, he can’t bring himself to turn away, at al.

He simply stares, replaying Merlin’s last day over and over in his head, until the cell is opened and new innocents are put inside, too.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Perhaps it’s unfair to bombard Merlin with nothing more than the stresses of his day but, as Arthur rants and rambles that night in his dream, Merlin is good enough to at least nod along.

“When you suggested that Morgana could be something to fear, I thought you simply meant because of her typical grudge-holding and temper— not treason,” Arthur’s saying now, pacing back and forth as he gestures wildly, his thoughts hurting his head. If anything, at least this gives him something to talk about other than their shared kiss the night before and what it might mean. “And, gods, to think I almost agree with her? Locking up druids simply for making camp by the city walls? Goodness, I’m not saying I suddenly trust them all but they certainly deserve more justice than chains and unfair trials, wouldn’t you think?”

“Yes, and—” The first phrase Merlin has gotten to say in a while and Arthur carries over it, his voice rising. 

“They beat that boy from before and, I know from experience, he wouldn’t have been violent enough to cause such a reaction. He may have struggled or talked back, sure, but I don’t understand what could have led the guards to have actually hit him other than cruelty,” Arthur says, his tone becoming frantic. “And now the druids are talking nonsense to my father about what they want— talking about Mordred and some other unknown fool. It would be easier for us all if they just spoke plainly about what they want. This damned cryptic aura isn’t helping in the slightest.”

“Don’t I know it.” Merlin rolls his eyes, taking a step towards Arthur and watching him with a smile that’s strangely fond. “Are you nearly done?”

“Not in the slightest.” Arthur’s not quite proud of how his voice slides up so high as he prepares another hour-long vent but Merlin laughs to himself, anyway, ignoring Arthur’s glare.

“Yes, well, then. I suppose it’s my job to say that you are definitely done for the night,” he says, placing a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. It shouldn’t work so well to still a fraction of Arthur’s racing thoughts, but it does. “How about you get some rest instead?”

Arthur’s face crinkles. “What on earth are you talking about? I am.”

“You’re sleeping, true,” Merlin says with another soft laugh, “but it’s hardly rest if you’re still so aware. You know, you can… You can sleep here, in a sense, if you’d like. It won’t rest you physically, you’re already doing that, but it may help with bringing some peace to your mind for a while.”

“And what would you do while I’m sleeping?” Arthur asks. “Watch me?”

“Watch over you,” Merlin says, as though it’s obvious. “The way I’ve always done.”

Arthur scoffs, if only to distract from the warmth in his cheeks. “When you say it like that, it makes me wonder if you’ve been sneaking into my room to spy on me.”

“Just sleep, you prat,” Merlin says, smiling.

Arthur does his best to think of another argument but, instead, he finds himself lowering to the grass, anyway. It’s cool when he lies down, framing his body in a way nature never really does when he’s out on hunts or patrols. It welcomes him rather than turning away from his intrusion, pulling him closer instead of breaking beneath his touch.

Merlin sits beside him, smiling to himself. He brushes a hand through Arthur’s hair, gently working out a small knot, and then stroking his fingers through the strands.

It feels as though there should be something for one of them to say. Something meaningful or something light, it doesn’t quite matter what; all Arthur knows is that his chest swells with a hundred words when he looks at how soft Merlin’s eyes are. His throat burns with a million things he could say.

But he closes his eyes when Merlin directs him to do so. He takes a deep breath, saving his voice for another time.

All that’s left is the sound of wind brushing through the grass. This close to the blades, it nearly keeps Arthur awake.

As though answering his thoughts, the wind fades to a stop, leaving nothing but an echoing silence around him.

He wonders, for a while, if that was Merlin’s doing— if Merlin simply wished for the wind to cease. He wonders if Merlin has more magic than he’s letting on. He’s not upset at the thought, just curious. The wind, after all, wouldn’t just stop on his own.

He means to ask. He means to open his eyes.

But the sun in his dream is warm, and the grass is softer than any bed.

And he sleeps with Merlin’s hand still in his hair, the softest of smiles on his face.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur wakes to the wind and world whispering his name. When he finds the will to open his eyes, brilliant blues smile back down at him.

Merlin’s eyes are brighter than the sky but, as Arthur sits with a small stretch, he sees the sky has finally changed.

He thinks, perhaps, he’s still dreaming within his dream. He thinks, maybe, his eyes have simply not adjusted enough to see the magic-made world around him. 

But the beckoning glow of orange and pink shadows stretching across the field to him and Merlin remains. He can’t quite tell if it’s sunrise or sunset, but he still catches his breath at the way the colors spill over the land and sky, the way it paints even him in every shade he’s never taken the time to adore. It takes away any remaining exhaustion, gradually warming him as he realizes the sun has begun to rise— a new day, somehow, in his mind is starting. 

Again, he wonders if this is Merlin’s doing. 

Again, he doesn’t ask.

“Is it always like this when you wake up here?” Arthur asks instead, his question as innocent as the changing colors before them. The sun gleams like something precious, like gold that’s been dropped over their sky.

Merlin shakes his head but he does so with a smile.

“I can’t sleep here,” he says. “Being not alive will make that a bit less of a necessity, I suppose. But it’s alright. I’m content to just be here.”

“In my head.”

“With you.”

It’s so incredibly simple that Arthur feels something brighter than any sun awake within him— a light that’s been begging to burst since he first saw the beauty of Merlin’s smile back when they were both too foolish to imagine they’d end up here.

Where would those precious idiots be if Arthur wasn’t a prince? What would they do if magic was simply a skill some people could do? No titles or laws or fears or lies— just them. How would that world be?

As Arthur turns to face Merlin, he finds a glimpse of an answer in the magic-gold glow of the sky behind him.

How is it that Merlin’s eyes— whether blue or gold or something in between— are always still lovelier than the sky itself?

“Can I kiss you again?” Arthur asks with a whisper.

Merlin’s eyes light up with something more than magic, something more than the fondness he always seems to have when looking back at Arthur.

He leans forward, a silly smile on his face.

“Yes.”

And Arthur smiles as he leans forward, too.


	6. Chapter 6

Arthur wakes like he’s emerging from mist. It’s an awakening where the dreams still linger on his skin, in his hair. Though early morning warms him, he’s still cool and calmed by the small droplets of his sleep holding tight to his being. He wakes with the certainty that he’s leaving something behind, but also with the promise that it will still be there when he chooses to return.

He waits in bed, eyes shut as he hums softly to himself. He can still feel Merlin’s fingers on his skin if he focuses hard enough. He can still hear his voice against his ear.

It’s a sound interrupted by the quiet ruffling of papers on his desk.

Arthur’s eyes open and he sits up, turned in time to see Morgana glaring angrily at him, that dream book in her hand. She stands framed against the window, though her eyes are brighter than day. It’s an anger that runs down her skin, draped over her more delicately than even her dress.

“What the hell is this?” She asks, though there’s a waver in her voice. “Why would you need a book about dreams?”

Morgana says it like it’s more than anger, like there’s some second question he wouldn’t have heard a month ago. She says it and her words tremble; her eyes narrow, just enough for Arthur to feel pinned beneath her gaze.

She asks why Arthur cares about dreams and Arthur can hear her asking if they’re anything like hers.

Because Morgana has her magic, right? And Arthur’s had enough time to try and figure out what that magic is.

Dreams. Prophecy. Foretelling.

He can’t tell her he knows any of that. 

“Consider it casual curiosity,” he says, aiming for exasperation and hitting frustration perhaps a bit too hard. Morgana’s gaze hardens. “Now would  _ you  _ like to tell me why you’re in my room?”

Morgana’s jaw clenches and she sets the book down with a small slam, glaring at Arthur as though he’s not dressed entirely in nightclothes, standing before her with unbrushed hair. 

“You really don’t want to answer my question, do you?” She asks. Something both warm and cool fizzles beneath Arthur’s skin, annoyance prickling the back of his neck.

“I just did.” Is this more than her own fears aiming themselves at Arthur? Does she know about Merlin, about the way Arthur’s dreams truly are? The thought alone terrifies him. “But if you insist on pushing the matter—”

“I only ever insist on the truth, Arthur,” she says with fire in her throat. “Do you forget how awful a liar you are?”

Gods forbid Arthur be good at being honest. A muscle under his eye begins to twitch; he has neither the patience or the will to engage in one of Morgana’s fights today. 

“Right, yeah, let me just give you the dramatic explanation you’re clearly looking for.” He feels pushed against a wall, scrabbling for purchase within his words. Anything to direct her from this, anything to ease the storm swelling beneath his skin. “Would you like me to include dragons or griffins in this one?”

“Gods, Arthur, I just want you to be honest with me,” Morgana snaps, her voice edging on frantic. “Why can’t you just be—”

“Because I need to figure it out on my own!”

Something slams against the window— a breeze he hadn’t realized was picking up as he and Morgana spoke. The crashing sounds cracks the edges of the glass, the near shatter feeling like a snapping of a cord in Arthur’s chest. 

Morgana stares at him as he heaves for breath, some distant part of him aching to reach into the wind as though it will help capture the air he’d lost from his lungs in the shout.

“I understand if you don’t wish to tell me,” Morgana says, the heat gone from her voice and replaced with something that’s almost an understanding. Arthur looks away; he can’t take the tenderness in her eyes. “But— Well, just know you can tell me. Whatever it is, and whenever you’re ready.”

The words are kind but they almost feel like an accusation, like this is the thing he should be telling her. Like this is the thing he should have told Merlin before things got too far.

He’s still struggling for his own response, voice caught in his throat as he nods slightly with reddened cheeks. Morgana stares at him a moment more before sighing and turning away.

“I came here because I think there’s something you need to hear,” she says. “Get dressed. I’ll wait outside.” 

And, with all the grace Arthur could never have, Morgana walks past him and into the corridor outside his room.

Arthur only hesitates for a moment, his thoughts lingering on Merlin’s brief warning about Morgana and the ambiguity of her intentions. It lasts only a breath, though, before he’s dressing himself and joining her in the halls. She doesn’t say anything when she sees him, though she does look as though she’d almost expected him to ignore her request.

Then, she turns and walks away, Arthur following silently behind her. As always, she walks with her head high, a purpose wrapped around her arms and neck like jewelry finer than any gift she’s ever received. Morgana’s a being built on beliefs, her foundations the morals she’s shaped for herself. 

These are the things Arthur’s thinking of when Morgana leads him outside the Druid cells. He’s not as surprised as she seems to expect him to be.

Still, his voice is low when he speaks. “What are we doing here?”

“You need to talk to them,” she answers, nodding towards the cells. Druids watch them, their eyes kind even as Arthur knows they can’t hear the words shared. “Ask them why they’re here.”

Arthur’s brows furrow together. “I was already going to do that. My father—”

“Not as Uther’s son,” Morgana says, an edge of sharpened steel in her voice. 

“Then how?” Arthur asks, confusion only growing in his tone. Morgana laughs— it’s not cruel.

“Figure it out,” she says, touching his arm as though to calm him. “Surely, you can do that much.”

And then she’s gone, leaving only the lingering sound of her skirts pulling against the stone floor.

Leaving only Arthur and the eyes of the people his father plans to kill.

Arthur turns to them, a weight suddenly settling across his shoulders like a cloak or shield, tensing his muscles as he clears his throat and folds his arms. He takes the last few steps into the dungeon, a cool air surrounding him.

“I’m Arthur Pendragon,” he says because how else should he start? That’s who he is— why, then, does the name cause the younger boys to pull back from the bars, for the men his age to guard others with suspicious eyes. Arthur nearly falters but carries on anyway with a script he’s known since he was young. “I need to know why you’ve come to Camelot. I need to know what you’re planning.”

Eyes narrow at him. Someone scoffs; others turn away.

Arthur searches for more words in the back of his mind, feeling foolish as he stands here on his own.

“We’re not plotting or scheming,” a young girl says, hidden in the back corner of a cell. She looks at him with the same eyes Morgana has whenever he agrees too quickly with his father’s ideals.

“I never said you were,” he says.

The girl shakes her head and turns back to stare at stones. “That doesn’t mean you don’t think we are.”

It’s said with no blame or anger but Arthur recoils from the words anyway.

“I just—” He starts, stopping. Words fail him. “I can help. If you need it.”

_ If you let me _

Silence settles around the dungeon, wrapping Arthur in its chilling grasp. He feels as though he may be the one behind the bars, the one awaiting judgment when he’s sure he’s done no crime. It’s not a cruel silence; it’s gentle in the way it sits upon his shoulders, the way it strokes through his hair. It’s not cruel— still, he fears it.

It’s when he turns to leave, his throat warm with the words he’ll snap at Morgana for setting him up to look like a fool, that a familiar voice echoes through the stony rooms.

“I could feel Emrys around you.” The druid boy who’d first escaped, leaning against a far cell wall with his arms around his middle, his eyes wide and damnedly young. “I still can.”

_ Emrys _ — the name rolls across him with the aftershocks of lightning, sensitive and sharp even as it tugs him back into the conversation, back into the sight of those who whisper the name like a secret that’s been let loose.

“You’ve said that name before,” Arthur says softly. “I don’t understand.”

Silence— and then the answer of an older man standing and pulling himself to the front of a crowded cell, grey hair curling around his head and thin robes draped across his form. He stands before Arthur, unafraid and with eyes deep enough for Arthur’s answers to be found within.

“We met once before,” he says, as calm as a leaf waiting for its time to fall. “Do you remember?”

Arthur takes a breath, taking in the man’s eyes— his voice, his posture.

He recognized him long before the question was asked.

“The druid boy,” Arthur says, instilling the same relaxed steadiness into his own tone. “Mordred. I returned him to you.”

The man— a man who Arthur learned was named Iseldir, after researching the people he’d returned the boy to— smiles and nods.

“Mordred has always been more attuned to magic than most druid children,” Iseldir says, holding onto a bar of his cell as though it’s a staff— a sign of his leadership rather than his captivity. Perhaps it’s this authority that keeps Arthur in his place, even as the discussion of magic lights upon the familiar fear of his father’s rage towards such things. “While some among us take lifetimes to recognize the weight of prophecies in our midst, Mordred’s magic allows him to connect with such figures. When he was last in Camelot, he met with Emrys, a sorcerer meant to bring freedom to those with magic. Now, Mordred has returned.”

“To find this Emrys?” Arthur asks, his heart already pounding at the thought of another sorcerer caught in Camelot, a man meant to destroy everything the king has worked for. 

Iseldir’s smile remains, never flinching or growing cold.

“He’s returned because he sensed Emrys’ death,” he says. “He came to Camelot to see if his prophecy was true.”

“And you all just followed a child?” It all almost makes sense, like there’s one last thread Arthur needs to grasp in order to understand what they mean. “Why not send just one of your people instead of risking everyone?”

“Because Mordred is important to us,” Iseldir says. “And because, if he was right about Emrys’ death, then the time of the Once and Future King has neared.”

The title sounds like something Arthur knows. Not as though it had been spoken to him but as though whispered to him while he slept, the words sinking into his mind without his knowing. It fits within his skull as easily as a crown does on his head, carrying the same weight— the same terrible promise of decision and destiny.

“And was he right?” Arthur asks, almost afraid of the answer. 

It’s at this that, finally, Iseldir’s smile drops. A whispering goes through the cells, hushed and distorted to Arthur’s ears.

“Emrys was executed for magic without a trial and without a proper burial,” Iseldir says as though reciting from memory. “It is— It’s part of the greater plan, but my people have gathered to pay our respects.”

Arthur barely hears past the declaration of execution for this man he’s never heard of, this prophesied savior of magic and myth. Something within his head aches; something in his skin screams.

He takes a step forward, not caring of how urgent he seems now.

“Tell me about Emrys.” His voice trembles in a way he fought for it not to. His eyes only find Iseldir’s, begging for answers to finally be granted. “Or tell me about his magic.”

“Emrys  _ is  _ magic. To talk about one would be to talk of the other,” Iseldir says, his eyes distant but fond. “He never made his magic known though he carries enough to bring the world to its knees. He’s saved your life and your kingdom, Arthur Pendragon.”

“Why me?” Arthur asks. His heart pounds; his stomach turns.

“Some may say it’s due to your role in the prophecy,” Iseldir says. “But I prefer to think Emrys just truly considered you a friend. He must have needed someone like that, after all, to help ease the weight upon his shoulders.”

The weight of a future that says he’ll bring magic back to Camelot, that he’ll save those now under persecution.

The weight of hiding who he is, of knowing he’s so powerful and being lonelier for it.

The weight of lying, of deceiving, of wearing his own shackles beneath smiles and gently glowing eyes.

A weight Arthur has seen in the grins of a close friend, has heard in the voice of someone saying his name as he slept.

A weight that brought him back to Arthur— always to Arthur. To protect, to save, to heal, to love.

Arthur staggers back, eyes suddenly wide. His throat burns with bile, his stomach twisting so sharply it hurts.

“You’re here because of him.” His voice is nothing but a whisper, a desperate ragged breath leaving his lungs empty and torn. He stares at nothing, his arms twitching at his sides. To fight, to tear, to hit, to stop this all from becoming so much bigger than he knew it could be.

“We’re here because of Emrys,” Iseldir says, nodding.

Arthur, though, shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “You’re here because of Merlin.”

<><><> <><><> <><><>

“It must be busy out there,” Merlin says one night, a week after Arthur’s talk with the druids. “You’ve barely been sleeping, at all.”

Once, Arthur may have been offended at the subtle accusation in Merlin’s words; now, though, he’s just surprised Merlin didn’t call him out sooner.

“It has been,” he says, toying with blades of grass beneath his fingers. “My father’s been talking about sending more knights after the druids outside the city walls. Morgana’s being as secretive as ever. And, then, the druids—”

He trails off. 

Arthur told Merlin that he spoke to the druids but, somehow, it’s harder to think of how to say what he knows. That Merlin’s got some prophecy behind him, that he’s even more powerful than anyone could have guessed.

That there’s another secret Merlin’s been hiding. That there’s an entire name Arthur never knew.

“The druids are good people,” Merlin says, used to speaking over Arthur’s wandering thoughts. 

Arthur glances up, relieved to see Merlin’s not looking at him quite yet. In the past week, Arthur’s been sleeping so little that it’s barely sleeping at all, opting for late nights and early mornings or quick naps when he can get away. It’s not that he’s scared to bring up Emrys or anything— he just doesn’t want to be looking into Merlin’s eyes when he says it.

“I know you can’t move against your father,” Merlin continues, gazing at his own hands, “but you should try to convince him to show them mercy.”

“Mercy’s not something I’ve ever seen my father partake in,” Arthur says with a soft scoff. 

Merlin sighs. “I know. I just— I wish there was something I could do to help them.”

And maybe it’s because Merlin’s looking away that Arthur finds the strength to say it. Maybe it’s because they’re alone in a place of grass and wind, and Arthur can’t stand the clutter of his own thoughts for a moment longer.

Maybe it’s because these things become easier the more they happen; maybe it’s because he can’t sit under the weight of another wretched lie.

So, Arthur steels himself and takes a breath. He looks into the sky as he says, “I would think Emrys would have the power to help whoever he wants.”

Merlin doesn’t answer, not right away. He takes a sharp breath, one he nearly chokes on, and Arthu can feel him pull back. It’s almost humorous. All this work to accept Merlin’s magic and secrets, frayed by the realization of something else hidden in the shadows.

Arthur’s head pounds as though something physical is hammering at the inside of his skull as the silence between them stretches with each second Merlin leaves Arthur unanswered. It’s the non-response that slips beneath Arthur’s skin, carefully twisting his wounded thoughts into the familiar heated hurt he felt when he first saw Merlin’s eyes glow.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” Arthur asks, trying and failing to keep the tight anger from his tone. “Or were you content to continue on with your secrets? How many more things are you keeping from me, Merlin? How long are you going to treat me like some fool or an enemy you can’t trust?”

“It means nothing,” Merlin says, turning his head further from Arthur’s gaze.

It only serves to add to the burn in Arthur’s skin.

“Nothing? There are druids gathering outside the city walls in masses we’ve never seen before because a simple servant was killed. Is that nothing?” He snaps, his fragile hold on peace slipping from his fingers as he speaks. Why won’t Merlin look at him as he says this, why is he so turned away? “They think you’re some savior, Merlin. A  _ martyr _ .”

“And I don’t care to be any of that,” Merlin says, finally turning his head to meet Arthur’s gaze with all the certainty of an ocean beneath a storm. It may be wrecked and torn apart, but the ocean will remain. The water— the deep blue, the darkness— can be disturbed but never taken away. “I was never theirs to claim. I only ever wanted to be for you.”

And they’re such pretty words, like all the words Merlin has whenever he talks about watching over Arthur or being his servant until the day he dies. He says it like he believes it, like this admission will fix anything.

He says it like he knows how it breaks something in Arthur’s chest in two.

“Then why did you lie about the magic?” Arthur asks, his voice suddenly low and as frail as the grass beneath his hands. He looks down but he can still hear Merlin move closer, can hear the shifting of dirt beneath him.

“I thought we talked about this,” he says. “I thought you’ve understood.”

“I understand hiding the magic that you had before,” Arthur says. “But I can’t figure out why you won’t admit that you still have some now.”

Merlin’s shaking his head when Arthur looks up, still wearing that wounded and confused look on his face.

“What I had, I lost,” he says. “When this first started, sure, I was able to do a few small tricks but, eventually, I lost my magic. I don’t have it anymore, Arthur, I promise.”

“Then why do flowers from my dreams appear in my life?” Arthur asks sharply, pulling away. “Why does the wind seem to blow according to my thoughts, my will? Why do I still see you here? Gods, why— why do I feel like your magic has burrowed beneath my skin, even when I wake?”

Merlin takes a soft breath, a realization in the shape of a little gasp.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh, Arthur. That magic isn’t me. It’s you.”

Something deep within Arthur turns as though opening. He looks up at Merlin, lightning brushing down his skin and into his throat, coating all his words as he struggles for something to say.

Merlin can’t be right. It’s another lie, another trick, another ploy to gain his affection and trust. Perhaps that’s all this ever was— perhaps it was only ever a dream and now Arthur’s gone mad, he’s lost it, he’s failed his kingdom and—

“That’s what my spell was meant to do,” Merlin says, as gentle as he always is when faced with Arthur’s panic and fear. “Did you really think I was selfish enough to cheat death on purpose? No, I only ever wanted you to be safe. So, I used a spell that was meant to just tuck my magic into your subconscious, a spell from a dream book about hiding messages in people’s minds for them to uncover as they slept. I tried to leave my magic for you. I just never anticipated that it would bring me here, as well.”

Past the buzzing in his ears, the rush of blood and the pound of his pulse, Arthur can hear Iseldir’s words in his head—  _ Emrys is magic. _

Merlin was brought into his dreams because magic isn’t something he could just give away, a piece of him to cut out and discard. Magic is Merlin, entirely.

When Arthur looks at Merlin, he feels as though he could cry. If Merlin’s spell had worked as he’d hoped… If he’d simply gifted his magic and moved on… Then…

“I didn’t mean to be here,” Merlin says, something of a plea in his tone— a request for Arthur to understand that Merlin would rather give Arthur one last gift than save his own life. “I was okay with dying but, first, I had to make sure you could be safe. Giving you my magic was the only way I could think to assure that.”

“Why would you do that?” Arthur asks.

“Because you’re my closest friend,” Merlin says with a smile. Like it’s that easy. Like it’s that obvious. “And, well, because you’re the Once and Future King but mostly because you’re my friend.”

And Arthur— gods, Arthur  _ laughs _ .

There’s nothing more to do, then, is there? When faced with such loyalty, such care and protection? How can he answer that and do it justice when he was the one who tried to have it cut away? How can he respond to Merlin’s smile? 

Two words fill his mind.

“Show me,” he says, causing Merlin to widen his eyes. “Merlin. Show me.”

Merlin— his closest friend, his protector, the one person Arthur ever loved and felt so loved by— understands. 

“Give me your hands, then,” he says, and Arthur does.

It’s terrifying to trust so freely. It’s exhilarating.

Merlin balances Arthur’s hands atop of his own, palms up with the sun warming his skin. Arthur could pretend the slight prickling along his nerves is the magic Merlin’s speaking of but, he knows, it’s just the result of having Merlin so close.

“Just trust the magic,” Merlin says, guiding Arthur’s hands further out.

Arthur watches Merlin. “I do.”

That stormy feeling Arthur’s felt— that thunder and lightning within his skin— pulls forward at a beckoning Arthur’s never given it before. It prods like a living thing at the inside of his body, seeking with a curiosity he would call childish if not for how his heart pounds, for how his mind blanks around the thought of  _ magic magic magic that’s magic inside me _

Following Merlin’s instruction, he gives a certain nudge to the whirling feeling inside of him, encouraging it to gather in his palms and fingertips. It doesn’t rush the way he had hoped it would— thoughts of a sudden control filling his mind— but, instead, it’s like gripping a sword for the first time. There’s a weight he still needs to become accustomed to, a new hilt to practice holding. His hands dip a bit under the warmth pressed into his skin, caught by Merlin’s fingers against the back of his wrists.

Merlin laughs. Arthur focuses on that; wind rushes over him, stealing his breath, and he somehow knows it’s a wind only he can feel.

The small light is just a spark at first, a small circle of pink-toned flickers the size of a petal. He holds his breath, perfectly still as he stares at the small proof of Merlin’s doing in his hands. Merlin, too, falls silent. He pulls his hands away from Arthur’s slowly, leaving rivers of his touch behind when his fingers brush against Arthur’s knuckles. It only serves to help the magic grow, the light expanding into a shape that’s all too familiar.

The light from the cave where Arthur found Merlin’s antidote. It feels a lifetime ago but, now, he can remember the comfort he felt upon seeing it, the surety that it was only ever good.

The same circle of light rests above his hands now, though it burns a Pendragon red. 

“It’s beautiful,” Merlin says in a whisper. 

Arthur stares, quiet. Merlin sent that light, didn’t he? Another time that Merlin saved him? With a bubble the color of calm seas, of peaceful skies, of Merlin’s eyes?

The light in Arthur’s hands is the color of blood.

At the thought, the light fizzles away and Arthur’s hands fall back into his lap.

“It’ll take some time to perfect anything with intention,” Merlin says, seemingly unaware of Arthur’s thoughts as he speaks with a glimmer in his eyes. “You’re actually stronger than you think, you know? Because—”

“Because if I’m the one with the magic,” Arthur says, speaking aloud the one thing he’d realized when Merlin explained what he’d done, “then I’m the one creating this world.”

He’s the one maintaining the dreams that Merlin lives in.

Merlin reaches for Arthur, trying to persuade him to practice some more, but Arthur only holds onto Merlin’s hands— tight, as if afraid to lose the one good thing he’s brought here.

“A good portion of the magic is being put into this place but, if you practice, you can get stronger without losing this,” Merlin says. “You can protect yourself.”

“Or I can mess up and get rid of it all,” Arthur says, looking down at their linked hands.

Because Merlin may be magic but he’s only here if he has a place to appear. Merlin may be magic but, once Arthur claims it, there’s no promise Merlin will have any reason to still be around.

It’s not really a risk Arthur wants to take.

“I gave it to you for a reason,” Merlin says, ever so patient. “This isn’t it.”

“But it could be.” Arthur tightens his hold on Merlin’s hands, the warmth and pulse beneath his fingers reassuring in a way nothing has ever been. “I’ll go to the druids. I’ll ask for their help. If they’re here, they must want you back, as well. Maybe— Maybe they’ll have a way to fix this, a way to bring you back.”

Merlin’s face twists. It’s not quite a frown but it’s enough for Arthur’s stomach to sink.

“It’s not that easy,” Merlin says. Gentle. Consoling. 

He’s giving Arthur condolences over his own death.

“No. I won’t lose you,” Arthur says in a heavy whisper, a ragged breath caught in his throat. His voice feels as though it may shatter any minute. “I won’t be the cause of this again. I won’t ruin this, I won’t—”

Merlin shuts him up with the gentle press of his lips to Arthur’s mouth. It’s almost a caress, Merlin pulling back only for Arthur to move back in. It quiets the storm in Arthur’s mind, the sky behind the clouds. Arthur can’t remember the last time he was touched so cautiously, so tenderly. Merlin’s lips against his is a touch Arthur didn’t know he was allowed to have.

The world seems to expand around them. Arthur deepens the kiss, trailing down the line of Merlin’s jaw when Merlin turns his head, his hands wrapping into Arthur’s hair. It’s a slow journey across Merlin’s skin but Arthur has never been more willing to take his time. Merlin continues his soft stroking of Arthur’s hair. As Merlin lets out a shaky breath, Arthur returns to his mouth, kissing him deeply and surely, eyes shut as he breathes in everything Merlin is willing to give.

He doesn’t know how long they stay connected, how long their mouths wander over the other’s skin or how long he loses himself in the places where Merlin’s hands are on him. But, when they pull back— breathless and smiling—, there are flowers blooming in soft yellow patches around them.

Arthur laughs, brushing his fingers across them. Pollen sticks to his fingertips, glowing like little stars against his skin.

“If I’m making this place, then where is it?” He asks, more to himself than Merlin. Still, Merlin smiles at him, twirling his fingers around the stem of one of those flowers. Arthur catches his hand as he goes to pull away, bringing it to his lips to kiss his knuckles— just because he can.

“That’s actually something I don’t know,” he admits. “I’ll let you know if I figure it out. Or maybe you can tell me. Whichever one comes first.”

Arthur laughs again, softer this time, but says nothing more. He doesn’t need to; there’s no need for speech. 

Merlin, though, continues with a small thoughtful frown replacing his smile.

“You need to wake soon, don’t you?” Merlin asks, though he says it as though he already knows the answer.

“Yeah,” Arthur says. He doesn’t know how he knows, only that the wind in his veins is cooler than it is when he first arrives here— only that he already feels a loss of Merlin’s touch though he’s sitting right before him.

Merlin’s jaw tightens and he nods sharply to himself.

“Don’t go to the druids,” Merlin says, looking into Arthur’s eyes. “Not if Mordred is involved.”

“What? The boy?” Arthur asks, eyebrows furrowing together. “Why?”

It’s not that Merlin hesitates but, rather, that he visibly makes a decision that he knows may be wrong. His eyes harden and his hands are fists when he pulls them back to his lap.

“In the same way I was destined to protect you and the way you are destined to unite the lands of Albion, Mordred is destined to kill you.”

“Kill me?” The words themself feel wrong when paired with the thought of the wide-eyed fearful boy he knows. “You must be wrong.”

“And I hope I am,” Merlin says, a small thread of panic beneath his tone. “But if I’m not… If that boy kills you, I’ll never forgive myself.”

It doesn’t seem worth saying that Arthur’s death would, at least, unite them. He grabs Merlin’s wrist and pulls back into his chest.

“You won’t change my mind, not as long as I think that I can help you,” he says against Merlin’s hair. Merlin groans and says something that sounds suspiciously like a rude name, though he says it with a trembling breath. Arthur laughs softly, shutting his eyes. “Just trust me.”

“I do,” Merlin says, still holding onto Arthur.

And Arthur opens his eyes, knowing he’ll be awake again when he does.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

The morning air is cool and calming. It wraps around Arthur as he hurries to the cells, hoping to speak with the druids about Merlin’s situation. He doesn’t know precisely what he means to say or what he’ll do if they can’t help but he’s sure he can figure it out once he arrives. If they care for Merlin half as much as Arthur does, they’ll do whatever they can to help. Then, Merlin can help Arthur find out how to help the druids escape.

Halfway there, though, he stops.

“Morgana?” He mutters to himself. Why, after so long of her cruel eyes and bitterness, is she pacing towards him with nothing but desperation in her eyes? 

“Arthur, thank goodness.” She stops in front of him, grabbing hold of his arms and pulling him to the side, the smallest of trembles in her voice. “Arthur, you have to stop it.”

“What are you talking about?” Arthur asks, his voice as equally hushed as hers. Familiar frustration fills Morgana’s eyes but she checks around them, looking for listeners, before turning back to Arthur.

“Uther,” she says with no small amount of disdain in her voice. Once, hearing her hatred might have hurt and confused Arthur. Her grip on his arms tightens. “He plans to massacre the druids left in the woods. He plans to send knights, I don’t know when.”

Arthur had always prided himself on being the calmer one between them— the one waiting to confirm rumors, the one raised with good manners and the one who practiced them. Morgana’s always been sensitive to every horrid deed, speaking her mind and breaking all manners of propriety as if to punish those around her for what they’ve done.

Now, though, it’s Morgana who’s schooled her features into something that only barely gives away the terror in her eyes, her shaking hands the only proof of her rage. 

Now, it’s Arthur who draws back as though he’d been struck. It’s Arthur who bites his tongue to keep from swearing, who stares at Morgana with every bit of disbelief within him.

“Are you mad?” He asks, stepping away from her. “He wouldn’t threaten his peace like this. How do you know? Are you sure?”

He nearly misses the soft breath Morgana takes in, the slight widening of her eyes. Her cheeks, already pink, darken just a touch; she pulls her hands back to her sides, pinching at her skirts.

And, oh. Oh, right.

Her magic.

Her dreams.

“I heard him give the command,” she says carefully, head tilted away though her eyes keep on Arthur. She doesn’t say where she heard him; somehow, Arthur already knows. 

“I still don’t understand,” he says, tasting distress thick on his tongue. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

Morgana’s lips purse and her shoulders tense. 

“Because he believes you’ve been enchanted.” The thin line of resentment underlining her voice makes sense as Arthur thinks of all the times Uther’s accused Morgana of being cursed, of being manipulated by magic just because she thinks someone doesn’t deserve to burn. “Admit it, you’ve been acting strange ever since… ever since  _ Merlin.  _ Uther’s noticed and, of course, he’s come to assume that Merlin did something before he was imprisoned. They never did find out what he was trying to do when they caught him.”

Arthur doesn’t miss the way she stumbles over Merlin’s name. He doesn’t point it out to her, though; he nearly does the same when he answers her unspoken question.

“Merlin was saving me.” And he doesn’t know exactly how, doesn’t know the details of Merlin’s spell, but he can recall the warmth that had spread through his body from the place Merlin’s hands had been touching. He remembers the relief from pain, the ability to take a breath after so long struggling for each inhale. He remembers the desperation in Merlin’s eyes; he remembers Merlin whispering his name like a prayer.

Morgana eyes him strangely but she, too, refrains from pushing too far.

“He believes the druids were part of some make-believe scheme he’s accusing Merlin of having planned,” she continues, and heat fills Arthur’s chest at the thought of Merlin’s name being further tainted by false crimes and intentions. “I had believed it to be safe when I led you to speak with them but a guard had been nearby, he’d heard your conversations about Emrys and prophecy. He told your father. I wouldn’t doubt that Uther fears what he’s heard and he’s lashing out because of it.”

A defense for his father rises to Arthur’s lips— a habit he curses himself for when he shuts his mouth and turns away. He knows Morgana’s right. He knows she has always been right.

Still—

He looks back over at her, lingering on the miserable curve of her lips and the wretched way she tugs at her skirts, fiddling and nervous in a way she so rarely is. She’s come to Arthur for help, halfway demanding it though she knows how she’d be punished if he decided to go to his father. She’s trusting him but, somehow, Arthur feels it’s not entirely his own doing. She wears the eyes of someone with too little choices, of someone hoping for something to finally go right.

“Why do you care so much?” He asks before he’s fully thought it. “I know you value justice but why go so far for those that you don’t know?”

It would be fair for Morgana to grow upset— to pull away and snap at Arthur for not understanding what it means to save lives. She’d do it in the past, and Arthur would go through his day feeling guiltier for it.

Today, though, Morgana backs off. She considers Arthur with a wary glance, and then tilts her head in some strange manner.

“Mordred.” She doesn’t say the name to Arthur and, from an alcove further behind Morgana, a little boy in a small cloak walks out.

Mordred. The child destined to kill him.

The dread tightening around Arthur’s skin is not unlike the magic he felt in his dream, the reaction of something he’s still learning to control. He stiffens so as not to step back, his hands fists to keep the growing pool of magic in his palms at bay.

Mordred comes to stand by Morgana, clinging to her hand as though it’s the only way he’ll ever be safe. Morgana holds onto him with the same protective aura she had before, staring back at Arthur as if daring him to say anything.

Arthur turns his gaze to Mordred’s eyes. If the boy knows anything of his supposed destiny, it doesn’t show through the fear and worry framing his entire being.

“I can protect Mordred but he’s not the only child the druids have,” Morgana says, sounding pained at the thought of the younger druids left in the cells or in the forest. She pulls Mordred closer to her, almost as if he can be taken from her at any moment. “Countless children and their families people will die if Uther isn’t stopped.”

The dread in Arthur’s body twists into horror as he imagines the reality of Morgana’s words. 

Once before, he’d led a small army into a druid camp. He’d like to think that the massacre that had happened there was a mistake— that his father hadn’t meant for the women and children to be brutalized alongside the men, or that his knights didn’t know the druids carried no weapons— but he knows the truth as plainly as he knows the answer to Morgana’s request.

If Arthur does nothing, another purge will begin. If Arthur does nothing, the blood of hundreds will be on his hands before he ever takes the throne.

Mordred keeps his gaze on him, his eyes thoughtful even as his hands seek out Morgana’s. At that moment, he’s not a tool for destiny to place its plans upon; he’s just a frightened child seeking out comfort while the unimaginable looms before him. How many more children like that will Uther slay?

“I’ll stop him, then,” Arthur says with an authority that’s not of royalty or nobility but simply of knowing his next actions are what will define his history. 

Morgana smiles at him. It’s been a while since she’s done that.

Still, Arthur returns the soft grin, nodding as she mutters about taking Mordred back to her chambers. Arthur watches them go, that smile still on his face.

Merlin had said he fears Morgana’s future, that he doesn’t trust Mordred’s presence.

Arthur shakes his head. He’d always joked about Merlin being too paranoid.

If he can pull this off— if he can stop the attack— then maybe he can prove himself stronger than destiny itself.

He does have the greatest sorcerer’s magic living within him, after all.


	7. Chapter 7

_ The last time Arthur truly saw Merlin was on a day that should have been used for gentler things. He remembers standing at his window that morning, looking out at the heat of the sun and thinking of how best to train his men in the warmth. Merlin had been behind him, tidying the room as he ranted on and off about how unfair it is to work on such a hot day. If he had been allowed, Arthur would have agreed. _

_ As it was, Arthur simply turned and watched Merlin work. It was one of those days where he was granted such permission— the permission to waste time, the permission to focus on Merlin rather than the hundreds of tasks he seems to have each day. He’d gotten good at looking over his paperwork at such times— literally glancing over the top of it and smiling to himself as Merlin flitted about the room. _

_ Merlin was less subtle than Arthur, his eyes constantly flicking up to Arthur’s face as though checking to see if he was still there— checking to see if he was still alright. It’d be comforting if it wasn’t so ridiculous.  _

_ He could keep Merlin here forever— adding new chores, starting new conversations— but Merlin yawned for the fifth time in as many minutes. He tried to hide it but, well. He seemed to be horrible at hiding things from Arthur. _

_ Arthur did his best not to let his concern show. _

_ “You know nights are for sleeping, right?” He asked, rolling his eyes. “Do you even try to rest when you’re done working?” _

_ It was a joke and Merlin returned in kind, sighing dramatically. “Arthur, with you? My work is never done.” _

_ Arthur scoffed, shaking his head as he walked past Merlin to the door of his chambers.  _

_ “Well, lucky for you, today’s looking to be uneventful,” he said. “You’re welcome to go catch up on your sleep, so long as you return in time for the knight’ training this afternoon.” _

_ Merlin tried to act affronted— “I am not a child in need of a nap”— but Arthur could see the appreciation in his eyes, the gratefulness hovering over the blue like clouds over the sky. _

_ Arthur was still smiling when he opened his door, hoping to send Merlin off to get his much-needed rest. _

_ His smile fell, though, when he saw the knight hurrying down the halls towards him. _

_ “Prince Arthur!” He said before he’d fully reached Arthur’s room. “They’ve spotted an assassin in the castle. He—” _

_ Arthur didn’t hear the rest of that statement. He also didn’t hear what Merlin shouted as Arthur took up his sword and ran in search of his father. If the assassin didn’t come for him, they came for the king; Arthur, every bit the soldier his father made him, didn’t waste time waiting for someone else to tell him where to go. _

_ He ran. He barked orders at every knight and guard he saw. He shuddered when the warning bells finally started ringing. _

_ And he struck the cloaked figure standing in the throne room when he happened upon him. _

_ What happened next, though, became a blur.  _

_ Swords clashing, people yelling, the assassin ranting about justice and freedom from tyranny. _

_ Then, a poisoned blade finding its way into Arthur’s chest, into Arthur’s heart.  _

_ People screamed, but none so loud as Merlin as Arthur collapsed with a fire racing through his veins. _

_ And Arthur couldn’t keep up with the world as it sank in and out of existence around him. Someone carrying him to his room, someone begging for Gaius to fix it. His father ordering the execution of the intruder, his father standing at his side but not saying a thing. _

_ These things might have been dreams. _

_ But when he woke with Merlin’s touch upon him, Merlin’s golden eyes looking at him, Merlin’s hands slick with Arthur’s blood— it was with a vividness that demanded for Arthur to know it to be reality. _

_ He heard Merlin say his name. He heard himself draw in a breath, sudden and sharp. _

_ And then he heard the doors slam open. He heard his father scream “Sorcerer! Step away from my son!” _

_ Merlin backed away, already holding his hands up in surrender… _

_ <><><> <><><> <><><> _

Arthur spends the rest of the day waiting for a chance to follow through on his promise to Morgana. He spots her in the corridors and in the few meetings she’s allowed to sit in on, her gaze never far from Arthur’s. Arthur tries to avoid the weight of it, focusing on his tasks even as his mind wanders.

It’s not until that evening that he finds himself alone— that he finds himself walking to his father’s rooms.

The king is busy in an unofficial meeting with his own favored knights, something Arthur only knows about thanks to his current paranoia. With each minute, he’s afraid his panic is more justified than he believes.

The corridors seem emptier than usual as he walks. The space around him seems lonelier than it has in a long time. He’s not blind to the fact that this is the part where Merlin would give him advice. This is the part where Merlin would reassure him with fate Arthur always heard as fiction, with friendship Arthur never truly appreciated as he should.

His mind buzzes as he nears his father’s door. There’s no time to think of what Merlin would say or do; and, anyway, Arthur would like to think he knows by now.

Breaking into his father’s chambers is as easy as it’s always been, a task Arthur learned as a joke when he and Morgana were children. Before long, Arthur’s closing the door behind him, breathing in the consistent simplicity and gentle grandeur of Uther’s room. His father, it seems, can never decide what he finds suiting for a king.

Reaching his father’s desk is quick. Finding the orders Morgana spoke of is quicker.

He finds the execution mandate first, signed that morning with an order for all druids in their cells to be executed before the end of this week. Following that, he comes across the simpler page. Less official, less detailed— simply a written report for an event that has yet to occur.

Dated for the following morning. Describing the unfortunate massacre of the druids outside the city walls. 

_ They didn’t come peacefully _ , the paper reads.  _ Their violence was met with our own.  _

For all his life, the king’s seal on a document has spoken to Arthur only as a sign of knowledge he’s yet to understand or as an authority that’s been earned. Now, staring at a page of lies, it only serves to make him sick. It’s the same way he felt when he’d let Merlin be put to death— no trial or questions asked. This time, though, the nausea is put to shame by something that wasn’t there before, something that should have been there all along— the realization that his father’s rule was never just.

Tomorrow at dawn, his father will murder hundreds of innocent people. For the first time, Arthur’s not surprised at the understanding that his father won’t feel any guilt over it.

Within him, a wind blows hot and unforgiving against his bones. Within him, the one hope that Morgana had been wrong snaps with all the thunder of lightning across a darkened sky. 

The hearth roars to life with a fire that cannot be explained by logical means— only by the burn pouring from Arthur’s skin as he heaves for breath, only by the rage spilling over from his body as he reads the words over and over.

Arthur knows why that fire’s there. And he knows, if his father pushes, this is just the beginning of how his kingdom will burn.

The fire crackles and snaps but Arthur can’t focus on it for long, distracted suddenly by the sound of guards returning to their post outside Uther’s door.

Arthur sets the papers down, only briefly lamenting his inability to put the fire out, before escaping through a servant’s door on the other side of the room. Once back in the hallways, he brushes the sweat from his palms and tries to calm his breathing as he returns to his own room.

Arthur’s door is unlocked by the time he arrives. From this, he knows to expect a visitor but he’s still taken aback when he sees Uther in his room.

“Arthur,” Uther says, ignoring or not seeing the way Arthur stiffens. He stands from where he’d been seated at Arthur’s table, a few goblets of wine before him. “Good. I was hoping to speak with you.”

Arthur warily walks forward. The man he sees before him shifts from father to monster and his head aches as he tries to reconcile what he sees with what he knows. Understanding that his father is wicked is easy when he’s reading words on a sheet of paper; it’s more difficult, though, when looking upon the man who raised him. 

“What for?” Arthur asks, proud of how his voice remains steady. “Am I in trouble?”

Morgana’s voice in his head, reminding him of his father’s fears. That Arthur’s cursed or enchanted— that he’s not to be trusted.

Arthur keeps a few steps away from his father, farther than he usually stands. His father makes a small humming noise, noting the distance.

“Gaius said something about your troubles sleeping,” he says. Arthur can hear the suspicion beneath it, the ever-present fear that something is induced by magic rather than ordinary means. “Is it still a problem?”

Arthur answers with only a portion of the truth. “I had been having bad dreams for a while. It’s not an issue any longer.”

It should be a satisfactory answer but Uther carries on.

“I should hope these dreams were not inspired by recent events?” He prompts, eyebrow raised as if to show he knows full well what he’s doing.

Arthur fights to keep his hands from forming fists. 

“Of course not,” Arthur says in a tight voice. “Nothing but manifestations of stress after a long day of training. They’ve become better as I’ve eased the sessions with my knights.”

Usually, Uther would scold Arthur for relaxing any sort of training, reminding him of the kingdom’s first defense and the uncertainty of peace. Now, though, he simply nods.

“Good,” he says in that kingly way of his. “Morgana’s been difficult enough on her own. I’d hate to worry about you, as well.”

Arthur feels his placating grin stretch painfully across his lips. “I appreciate the concern, father. You’d be the first to know if something was wrong.”

“Hmm.” Uther turns his back, lifting the goblets. “I suppose I would.”

Arthur watches with no further need to speak as his father refills them, turning to pass one of them to Arthur.

Arthur takes it, knowing he can’t refuse without giving away his bitterness. Besides, in the past, a shared drink of wine was often how Uther ended their nightly conversations. If anything, this symbolizes his father’s departure soon, and Arthur can return to planning how to stop him in the morning.

But then the first taste of wine hits the back of his throat and he suddenly knows that everything is wrong.

“Wait,” he says, stumbling as his father takes the goblet back from him, a steadying hand on his shoulder. “What are— I don’t—”

Behind his father, on the table, there’s a familiar vial. A vial Arthur had held at night, unopened but still a comfort as he questioned whether to take it. A vial he obtained when he was a different person, a more foolish person.

A vial that promises to bring sleep without dreams.

A vial that nows rolls, empty, from the table to the floor.

Arthur winces at the shatter though he hears it as though from behind a wall, the effects of the sleeping draught already taking hold.

“It’s alright, son,” Uther says though Arthur’s heart pounds, though Arthur’s hands fumble for something to hold him up. “It’s alright, just calm down.”

There’s a fire beneath Arthur’s skin but it can’t get out. There’s a wind, a storm, a rage, and he feels it consuming him whole.

His father leads him to his bed with gentle hands, shushing him the entire time.

“You’ve been enchanted. It’s not your fault,” he says as though soothing a young child. Arthur never heard him speak to him so gently when he was just a boy. 

“You can’t—” Arthur pants for breath, his eyelids growing heavy as his limbs fall limp at his side. Against his will, he collapses against the bed. The blankets and pillows welcome him, trapping him. “I won’t let you—”

“The potion will keep you here until my work is done,” Uther says, and Arthur’s too exhausted to scream the profanities echoing through his mind. “Trust me, son. All will be right by tomorrow.”

Uther turns to go, Arthur’s vision of him wavering. He reaches out but his body won’t obey his commands.

As his eyes slip shut, he’s held in place by the childish fear of night.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

For the first time since all of this began, Arthur doesn’t dream of Merlin. 

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t dream, at all.

The darkness passing round his body has no sharp twists or sinister turns. It simply wraps around him, shadows embracing him as he lifts his head and stares at the walls of the cell he’s found himself in.

For the first time, he dreams that he’s alone.

He tries to stand, to move, but his body is stuck seated on the cold stone floor. His wrists have been left untied and he wears his circlet on his head. 

Still, fear latches onto him.

“Merlin?” His voice resounds off the walls, off the bars before him. “Merlin!”

Stone shudders and pebbles fall. The cell is small, barely big enough for Arthur to move around in, if he could move. It shakes as though it could crumble in on itself at any minute.

Arthur slams his fists against the ground, shouting as though he doesn’t care to be buried in the collapse. “Merlin!”

“Why are you yelling?” A voice on the other side of the bars, timid and afraid. “I’m right here.”

Arthur looks up to where Merlin wasn’t before, to where he is now. He’s seated outside the bars— but, as Arthur looks, his vision swims. He can’t tell who’s prisoner and who’s not. 

“Merlin, thank the gods.” He wants to reach out, to lean forward, but something tells him that drawing too close will only send Merlin away. “My father’s going after the druids in the morning. You must know a spell that can stop him. Something you can teach me that—”

“Why are you asking me?” Merlin’s eyebrows furrow. “I don’t have magic.”

And, oh. Oh, gods.

This Merlin isn’t his Merlin. 

Arthur can see it now, the way this Merlin has blurred edges and fading lines. The fabric of his jacket is a bit too rough. The light of his eyes is just a bit too dim.

He’s a dream and Arthur bites down on the need to scream.

“You do have magic, Merlin,” he says, pleading. If begging with his own mind makes him insane, fine. It’s better than sitting around waiting for anything else to happen. “You have magic and I know and it’s okay.”

“You’re saying it’s okay,” Merlin repeats, his head tipping to the side. 

“Yes,” Arthur says, jaw tight. “Though, you don’t need my permission to be who you are.”

Merlin— this dream, this phantom— smiles, and, though it’s not half as bright as it should be, Arthur nearly cries at the sight of it.

“I still don’t get why you think I’m the one with the magic,” he says. “You don’t need spells if the magic is truly yours.”

“But I need your help,” Arthur pushes and maybe he is insane because he tries to lunge forward, cursing when Merlin jerks back with wide eyes. “I’ve always needed your help.”

“But you can’t have it anymore.”

Guards appear on either side of Merlin, grabbing his arms roughly and leading him away.

Merlin goes without looking back, the way Arthur had turned from him.

“Wait, no! Back off! Merlin!” At last, Arthur can move freely and he throws himself at the door of the cell, banging his fists against the bars as he shouts. “Bring him back, you can’t take him! Spare him, he’s innocent! Merlin!  _ Merlin!” _

Even his yelling can’t overpower the sound of an executioner’s blade falling.

And Arthur does nothing but scream until his throat begins to bleed.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur’s still screaming when he jerks awake in his bed, shaken away by Guinevere’s terrified cry of his name.

“Arthur.” She has her hand at his shoulder, pushing and pulling in an attempt to rouse him. “Arthur, please, we need you.”

As he calms, Arthur’s first thought is that he doesn’t want anyone to need him; his second is that wanting this won’t stop them from needing him, anyway.

“Guinevere.” He sits, holding onto her wrist with one hand and using the other to press against his temple, wincing at the headache there. The draught was meant to keep him asleep for much longer, no doubt. “What’s going on?”

“We don’t have much time,” Guinevere says, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Morgana’s distracted the guards who were at your door. We knew something was wrong when we didn’t see you this morning. It was all but confirmed when the king left without you.”

“My father’s gone?” Arthur pushes to his feet, forgetting the headache. “How long?”

“Just a moment,” Guinevere says, following Arthur as he tugs boots on. “You should catch up if you leave now.”

Guinevere knows. She’s Morgana’s best friend— perhaps more; of course she knows.

When Arthur turns, she’s holding his sword out to him. He takes it, smiling gratefully, then follows her out the door and into the passages servants take— quicker, more hidden. They leave his armor behind, too rushed to waste time putting it on.

Running and chasing Guinevere helps Arthur not to focus on what will happen should he come across his father in the midst of murder. Despite everything, he doesn’t want to fight him if he doesn’t have to, tangling everything he’s ever known about who he’s supposed to be and what he’s supposed to do. He forces the fears back before they can drag him away from what he knows must occur.

Morgana’s waiting for them outside, a horse saddled and prepared for Arthur. 

“Uther left with his army of men just after dawn,” she says, her jaw set as she levels Arthur with a gaze that makes him want to promise his success. “They took the north-eastern path. You should be able to find them if you ride hard.”

Arthur nods, pulling onto the horse’s back. He grips the reins, prepares to charge forward, but looks at Morgana before he does so.

“Did you dream of today?” He asks. 

Morgana takes a sharp breath and something in Arthur twinges— a thing like a breeze that feels her pain.

“Not of today,” she says in a low voice. “But I haven’t dreamt of you losing, either. You kneel for no man.”

He watches Morgana a moment longer, her eyes that of a woman plagued by chaos. She’s been fighting her dreams alone for too long. Arthur swears to himself that no one will ever feel that pain again.

He does as Morgana says, following a familiar hunting path with an urgency that nearly causes him to feel bad for his horse. Uther’s men hadn’t been concerned with hiding their tracks, footprints and other signs of their journey clear to Arthur as he follows their trail in a way he’s been trained to do since birth. His easy following would comfort him if it didn’t also show him how many men Uther’s taken with him. 

Enough to burn a village down. Enough to start a war.

Arthur hears the screaming before he sees the attack. He sees the smoke and fire before he sees the knights following his father’s commands.

A band around Arthur’s heart pulls him from his horse, guides him into the battle with a ferocity that terrifies him. He scans over the clearing, the burning tents and swinging blades, his chest aching at what he sees. Already, the bodies of those who’d fought back lie at his feet, helpless and defeated. On the other side of the fray are those taken prisoner. Women, children, the ill and the weak— a handful of Uther’s personal guards stand before them, swords held at the ready though their captives are chained and afraid.

When a knight aims a blow at an older druid man trying to flee, Arthur rushes forward to block it, cutting the soldier down within seconds. From there, it’s just like every fight he’s ever been in.

The knights, so caught up in the slaughter, don’t seem to notice they’re battling the prince of Camelot until he’s already disarmed them, beating weapons out of their hands or leaving wounds severe enough for them to drop out of the fight. There are too many knights for him to stop them all but that’s not his goal; he doesn’t need to murder his father’s men, he just needs to make this end.

Before long, he’s fought his way across the field to the place where the prisoners huddle together, tear-stained and shivering. Uther’s guards come for him as one; Arthur’s blade is quick, spinning to meet a sword in one direction and turning to block a blade in another. He slices one man across the shoulder, another along the back of his arm. Deep wounds that leave them swearing and dropping their swords.

By the time they’ve turned back to him, he’s reversed their positions, now the one standing between the captives and the knights. 

Sword still level with the noses of those before him, Arthur holds himself tall.

“Stop!” His voice is the voice of a commander, of a man who’d led men into battles and shouted his instructions from across one end of a field to the other. He’s no stranger to making himself heard, even to those who wish not to hear. “As Crown-Prince of Camelot, I command you all to stop!”

It’s slow, the order rippling through the knights through whispers and stunned expressions. It takes longer than Arthur would like, his chest tight as the men finally pause and look at him.

“Stop,” he says again, his voice softer but still as strong as before. “Stand down. Can you not see you’re murdering innocents?”

“Arthur?” Uther, coming forward from a farther distance, mounted on a horse. Though his blade is clean, Arthur swears he reeks of blood. “What are you doing here?”

“Putting an end to another unjust massacre,” Arthur says, loud enough for the rest of the knights to hear. “I will not stand by and watch when I know I can do what is right.”

Uther’s eyes narrow but his voice is unbothered. “You are doing only what someone has enchanted for you to do. You’ve been manipulated to protect these people, just as I said.”

“No, I’ve been manipulated by you,” Arthur spits, the control in his body slackening as he takes a step towards his father. “You and your madness. And I refuse to be under its control any longer.”

“We shall see.” Uther’s gaze shifts. “Restrain him until this is done.”

Arthur’s a warrior. Arthur’s a prince.

Arthur’s still a boy distracted by his father and he doesn’t see the guards moving until it’s too late. He lashes out as they grab hold of him, taking his sword and pulling his arms behind his back. Arthur shouts for his father to listen, kicks out and growls even as he’s shoved to his knees, a thick rope wrapped around his wrists.

As he goes down, there’s a whistle in the wind as it blows just a bit harsher than it had been before. As he heaves for breath, angry and desperate, the trees seem to lean towards him, just a bit more alive than he’s ever seen.

As his father turns back to the knights, prepared to give another destructive command, Arthur feels Merlin’s magic inside of him. Twisting, turning— breaking itself and reshaping itself until it’s not Merlin’s.

It’s his. 

Arthur tries to fathom a path for this chaos to take, for his magic to escape, but it catches in his throat when he finds himself on the receiving end of his father’s snakelike gaze.

His father— who’s nodding to himself, preparing to continue his orders uninterrupted, forgetting that he’s the one who taught Arthur to fight until the very end. 

Magic unfurls from where it had hidden in the seams of Arthur’s soul— breathing the same air as him, beating with the same heart. It’s a weight as certain as any sword; as certain as Merlin’s touch has always been, a hand at his shoulder and a voice promising destined victory even in the most impossible battles.

“My Lord,” one of the guards near Arthur says to the king. “Shall we escort your son back to the palace.”

“No need. It may be best to resolve this issue now,” Uther says, waving away the suggestion as he brings his horse closer to Arthur and the captive druids behind him. He turns to them with cold eyes. “Which of you has enchanted my son? Give yourself up and you can expect mercy will be granted to the rest of your companions.”

The druids shift uneasily but their eyes are more steady than even Uther’s as a clear rage flickers beneath his regal expression.

At the silence, Arthur laughs.

“Can’t you see that you’re the one who’s done this? You and your rage, your hatred?” Arthur’s careful with his words, careful with the magic brimming in his fingertips. “I don’t need a curse to know that what you’ve done to these people is wrong.”

“Silence,” Uther commands. “I will not be disrespected by my own son.”

“But you will disrespect the lives and freedoms of those you’re meant to protect simply because of your own mistakes? Is that the way of a leader?” Arthur asks. He pauses, swallowing thickly as another memory appears in his mind— a blonde sorceress promising him answers, a brush of something more than wind sticking to his lips as the air began to change, his mother standing before him and whispering of what her husband has done. When Arthur speaks, his words tremble with emotion, the way they did when he was wise enough to believe what he had learned. “Tell me. Did your decisions with magic kill my mother?”

Uther’s jaw tightens. His eyes glare into Arthur as though wishing to burn the supposed curse out of him.

He keeps quiet, and Arthur has his answer.

The muscles in Arthur’s body go limp as he sighs, worn down by emotion and tragedy.

“Reconsider, please,” he begs. “We can change what has been done here. We can find a way to make things right.”

Uther hesitates, his horse sensing his nerves and stomping around anxiously as Uther and Arthur watch only each other. The knights and druids keep still, each afraid of moving— each waiting for Uther’s response to Arthur’s pleas.

And Uther, with his eyes hardening once more, straightens his shoulders and frees his own sword.

“This is making things right,” he tells Arthur. He turns to his army. “Kill them all. We can’t risk taking prisoners anymore.”

“Wait!” Arthur thrashes in his bonds. “No, stop!”

But the knights won’t listen to an enchanted prince. Not when their king is half-mad and thirsting for blood.

The knights turn back to those they’d been fighting and Arthur can see when their techniques shift from arresting to killing. They lift their blades, almost in unison; a handful turn towards the prisoners with something almost like regret and apology in their eyes.

Screams return to the clearing.

But none so loud as Arthur’s.

One second, the sky is blue and the trees are reaching for the clouds. One second, knights are preparing to stain their swords with innocent blood and Arthur is helpless to watch.

Then, something inside him begins to explode.

And he knows it’s an explosion because, between one second and the next, the world coats itself in a shade of gold, the wind gilded and shimmering and he knows he’s not the only one who sees it. There’s a storm on the edge of the sky, something like thunder rumbling so violently that the knights nearest Arthur fall to the ground.

The dirt of the forest begins to rise, circling and dancing the way it had that day in Ealdor— so long ago, too long ago, a day that should have changed everything if Arthur had ever proven he was someone worth trusting at that point.

And, like that day, the wind picks at the knights’ weapons, pulling their arms back and shoving them from the people they wish to hurt. It holds them in place even as the druids run freely, blinding them with dust and twigs, choking them as all air is tugged away and into Arthur’s control.

Even as knights fall, even as Uther’s horse kicks up and drops the king to the ground, Arthur begins to rise. 

To him, it’s nothing but a breeze. To him, it’s nothing but wind fanning the flames no doubt burning in his eyes.

“What have you done with my son?” Uther asks, still pressed to the forest floor. Arthur looks at him; he can feel how his eyes must glow.

“I freed him from your rule,” he says.

The ropes around his wrist fall away as if they were never there to begin with.

Wind wraps around him, pressing into his skin as he reaches for his fallen sword, his body light as magic continues to surround him. It both sinks into his body and pours from it, a never-ending connection with the trees and sky and dirt and air; the world is magic and Arthur breathes deeply, feeling more connected to his kingdom than ever before. 

He reaches a hand out towards a tree in the distance, a line of knights trying to make their escape from the mayhem. It’s not control over nature that Arthur feels when he reaches his mind into the earth, searching for the roots of the tree, its branches and bark and leaves— it’s permission.

_ Help me to save these people _ , he asks the world, and the world responds.

He closes his hand into a fist and the tree falls, blocking the path between the runaway knights and their horses.

Arthur redirects the energy the way he trains his knights, showing it where best to go and feeling every strike it makes against its opponents. The earth trembles beneath knights giving chase, shuddering and bringing them to their knees. The sky itself darkens, threatening a downpour when someone starts yelling to set the rest of the druids’ camp on fire.

A few knights— foolish, young, naive— rush at Arthur with their blades and shields. These, Arthur stops as easily as any enemy, battling with his sword even as his magic fights against those in the distance. He blocks their blows, spinning beneath their blades and shoving them aside. He kicks their feet out from under them. He holds the point of his blade to their chests, his eyes asking if they truly believe in what they’re fighting for.

He knows the answer when they bow their heads to him, hiding the truth he knows they wish to speak.

They’ve all been brainwashed by Uther. No more.

An unseen lightning connects around Arthur’s fingers, the language of the earth and sky, sinking into his body with the promise that the world wants this just as much as him. 

So it’s the world that alerts him when Uther rises to his feet and swings a sword towards Arthur’s back. Birds cry out; the dirt collected on Arthur’s skin stings until he turns with barely enough time to block his father’s blow.

When his father continues his assault, a clash of blades ringing out through the camp, Arthur feels fire surrounding him, a foolish knight dropping a torch too near the trees. Is this the same fire that condemned so many men, women and children? Is this the same fire that he choked on when his father declared another victory in his rule?

Is this the fire Merlin lived with everyday? The fire he feared?

Sparks leap towards Arthur but the wind blows them away before they can land. The sky thunders and rain begins to pour.

Uther holds his sword with two hands, swinging it over his head and down towards Arthur’s arms. He’s not looking for a killing blow, Arthur can tell, but he’s not certain how long his father can hold onto that kind of sensibility.

They move across the clearing, Arthur switching his sword from hand to hand, trying to keep up with Uther’s relentless strikes. 

“This is madness, father!” Arthur cries. Every muscle moves in time with the training he’s done all his life, survival and desperation for victory closing around him just as tightly as the magic he wields. “You must see that!”

“I see only a monster who’s taken my son,” Uther snarls, sliding his blade over Arthur’s in an attempt to bind it. Arthur pulls back easily, freeing his blade and striking towards his father’s. “And no one who sides with sorcerers will ever steal my throne. I will burn down every town with even a drop of magic until this kingdom is free of its curse.”

Arthur’s heart catches in his chest but he works past it with a tight jaw and hardened eyes.

“Then you have lost what it means to be a king.”

Arthur aims the point of his blade for Uther’s left shoulder, guarded by Uther’s hilt when he raises his sword to block the strike. It leaves his right side open and Arthur turns at the last second, slashing over his father’s arm— drawing blood and breathing heavily as he does so.

The anger in Uther’s eyes becomes hatred, hot enough for Arthur to know it will never die down.

Arthur stands back as Uther readjusts his grip on his sword.

For a moment, he swears he feels time slow. 

Around him, knights have given up fighting against the wills of nature, lifting their fallen companions and tossing down their swords as though the semblance of peace will protect them from the falling branches or brutal winds. Most of the druids, aside from the prisoners, have escaped. Though, some linger and watch Arthur with something like hope in their eyes.

Time’s still half-speed when Arthur turns back to see his father lunging for him, his sword directed for Arthur’s middle and his mouth open in a hateful cry. Arthur takes a breath, tasting magic and wind and blood, and raises his own blade as he steps to the side.

It’s pathetically easy to dodge his father’s blade, stepping out of the way at the last second. His own sword comes down across his father’s back, the flat of it smacking harshly against his spine and sending him sprawling to the ground.

When Uther turns over in the dirt to face Arthur, his sword lost in the failed attack, time picks back up and Arthur points his blade beneath Uther’s chin, keeping him on his knees.

They stare at each other, silent. When Arthur had first learned the truth of his mother’s death, he’d thought himself capable of killing his father for his crimes. Perhaps, at the moment, if Merlin hadn’t protected him, he would have; now, though, he supposes they’ll never know.

Arthur raises a hand, folding it slowly into a fist as he redirects the magic with a new command. “Stay down. Don’t move.”

Uther’s eyes widen fractionally as the magic pressures him further into the ground, stuck on his knees and incapable of flinching as Arthur pulls his sword away and faces the knights watching the scene.

“When I was given the title Crown-Prince of Camelot, I pledged to protect the kingdom, to risk life and limb to keep my people safe. From that moment, everything I have done has been out of love for Camelot. And that love cannot include genocide. It cannot stand by while the people I have sworn to protect are threatened and terrorized simply for existing,” he says. “My father has taught you to hate these people but things must be different. How many are dead because of him and his senseless fears? And how many more must die before we recognize that we have the power to change that? The king will never see reason but it is enough if we do. It is enough if we decide we must stop what he’s doing before we lose Camelot to our own hatred and blindness.”

Arthur’s palms warm as the rain begins to slow, the wind softening for his voice to be heard.

Knights watch him with more trust than he’d hoped to have from them. Most of the knights who have stayed are young men who’ve trained with Arthur, who know him better than they will ever know Uther.

Men he’s led into battles or hunts. Men he’s saved and men who have saved him.

No one speaks out against Arthur, and he swears he sees a few knights smile.

“Today, I free us all from my father’s tyranny. As my father has proven himself unfit to rule the kingdom, I claim my right as his heir— I claim my right to the throne.” Arthur pauses but he can see the shift when the knights accept his claim, the way they lose the tension in their bodies— the way more weapons fall to the ground, the way a few smile to those beside them.

He can see how the druids murmur amongst themselves, their whispers like prophecies Arthur knows without hearing. 

“Return my father to the city,” Arthur says, nodding towards a group of knights who step forward to bind Uther’s hands together. “Place him in the dungeons. I will speak with him there.”

The knights obey him with only the faintest hesitation, a few watching Uther’s face but, ultimately, following Arthur’s orders as they begin to lead him away. As the knights begin to gossip with one another, Arthur approaches the druid captives, a guard already in the process of meekly freeing them.

“I know nothing I say or do can solve what was done here,” he says. “But you will live in peace from here on, you have my word. I will release those imprisoned in the castle upon returning and you are free to go where you like.”

A druid woman smiles at him as her chains are taken off, two young girls clinging to her skirts with tear-stained faces.

“You are a good king, Arthur Pendragon,” she says in a soft voice, reaching for his arm. “Albion will not forget you or what you have done today.”

Arthur returns her smile. “Thank you. I only wish I could have done more.”

“You did everything,” she says, her smile growing amused. “Do not blame yourself for what your father commanded.”

Arthur nods, her words causing his voice to catch with a shaky breath. The woman turns away when her children start whining and Arthur laughs a little when they ask if it’s safe to go play now. While Arthur knows many from this day will live with the visions of fire and death in their dreams, it warms him to know there are others who will continue their lives without this fear.

“Prince— Ah, I mean, My Lord,” a knight calls for Arthur, stumbling over the title. “Shall we ride for the city?”

Arthur turns but, as he does so, his head spins ever so slightly. Magic seems to sink back into him at a rate he hadn’t prepared for, pulling back from the forest as its job is done. At the same time, there’s an emptiness within him, an exhaustion that causes him to trip when he tries to walk.

“Arthur!” Knights rush him, trying to keep him from falling. 

Magic burns across his shoulders, a pressure and a weight that tries to find its way back into his body. He feels it marking him, surrounding him, holding him.

He feels as though he could collapse at any moment, the exertion of what he’d done finally catching up to him as his eyes slip shut and he falls asleep.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

Arthur dreams of sparking magic at his fingertips, of golden prophecies sewn into his skin, of tapping into the meaning of his body and soul. It weaves around his bones and blood, thrumming in the space between each heartbeat.

Even in this dream, he can feel the exhaustion of the magic. It clings to him as a child clings to their mother’s arms, too tired to walk any farther. And he carries it without question, despite the weight it puts on his back when he lets the magic rest upon him.

He has other things to focus on, anyway.

He’s in the meadow again. He’s always in the meadow when he’s here.

The difference this time, though, is that the sky’s grown pale and dim, more grey than it is blue as a clouds and mist collect on the edges. The sun spills its light from where it sits in the horizon, too bright to look at though Arthur watches anyway as the rays from the sun extend over the grass and trees, as orange and pink shadows color the bottoms of the clouds. The difference, he thinks, is that he knows this is sunset.

The difference, he thinks, is that he’s alone.

“Merlin?” His voice is rough at first. “Merlin!”

His magic reaches out into the meadow, searching for Merlin even as Arthur turns and seeks out Merlin’s reassuring gaze. The magic spreads across the ground beneath his feet, leaving nothing but trembling blades of grass and the feeling that something is wrong.

Arthur’s not so certain he can breathe when he receives no response after calling Merlin’s name.

The magic returns to him, almost ashamed that it’s come back empty-handed. Arthur reaches his hand back for the magic; it presses into his palm but doesn’t sink into his blood. Not yet.

When he’d used magic to stop his father, to save those druids, it hadn’t been with spells or curses. He’d simply wanted to save them and the magic had responded.

So, now, Arthur shuts his eyes and thinks of Merlin.

Arthur had a steady heart before Merlin. He relied upon it, had felt it bend beneath the pressures of being a prince and knew that meant his heart was becoming strong. Strong enough to lead a kingdom. Strong enough to never fail.

Now, though, his heart nearly falters as he imagines never seeing Merlin again. How easily, he thinks, it is for a heart to change.

Instead of his hands or skin or blood, he lets the magic spill into his heart and he thinks of Merlin’s smile. His eyes. His voice. His kiss.

He fills the magic with something more terrifying than the magic itself, something more uncontrollable than the worst storm or the harshest winds.

He shows the magic his love for Merlin and then he sends it back out into the dream.

It takes a few seconds longer than Arthur would like but, eventually, he can feel the moment the earth shifts.

“Arthur?”

Arthur smiles and opens his eyes.

Merlin’s not quite there, his edges blurred and his colors dimmed, but Arthur knows it’s him— the way he knows that, with every second passing, the magic drains further and further from him.

“Merlin,” Arthur breathes with a smile, approaching him and taking him into his arms. He laughs, holding tight.

Merlin takes hold of him, too, with a small laugh of his own. 

“You did it. I felt it,” Merlin says, nearly breathless. He nods, almost hitting Arthur’s nose in the process from how close they are. “You fulfilled your destiny.”

Arthur tightens his hold on Merlin, his arms wrapped around his waist and pulling him close. “I only did it because I knew I had you.”

Merlin pulls back, just a bit, his gaze falling. He taps his fingers against Arthur’s arms as he thinks, unknowingly playing with the rhythm of Arthur’s heart with each touch. 

Then, Merlin steps fully away and Arthur’s muscles go taut. He reaches back out for him, his hand falling when Merlin swallows and shakes his head.

“You don’t need me anymore. I didn’t— I didn’t realize right away but, well, I can feel the magic leaving this place. Returning itself back to the world. Returning to just you,” he says in a low voice. Arthur’s brow furrows. He can’t quite tell what Merlin’s saying but it doesn’t sound good, it doesn’t sound right, it sounds like he’s saying goodbye. Merlin looks back into his eyes, a sad smile on his face. “It seems I was only ever meant to be here until fate deemed it fit for me to move on. And, when you fulfilled destiny’s wishes, that’s when the world decided I needn’t be here any longer.”

“What?” Arthur’s surprised he’s still standing, amazed he’s able to make a sound as he reels from Merlin’s words. “What? No. No, that can’t be right. You can’t just  _ leave  _ like that. I still need you. I’ll always need you.” He staggers forward, grabbing Merlin’s hands and bringing them to his lips. “Please. Please, you have to stay.”

“Arthur, you know this has always just been a dream,” Merlin says, his hands too soft and too gentle when they stroke Arthur’s cheek. “It’s a beautiful dream, yes, but it can’t last forever.”

“Of course it can,” Arthur says. “It’s magic and it’s you and it’s me and… and we’re meant to do great things, aren’t we?”

“Love, we already did those things.” Merlin’s voice is a whisper. “And I hope the stories are shared fondly.”

Arthur doesn’t cry. He doesn’t fall apart or collapse, no matter how terribly he wants to. Because this is a dream and, yes, it’s a lovely dream— but it’s only a dream of the grass blowing, the winds and magic a secret that only he and Merlin can see in certain lights; it’s a place for the accumulation of their lives to gather without fear.

And a dream built on those things has to end if Arthur’s ever going to live the life outside it.

“How long?” He asks, afraid to raise his voice above a breath.

Merlin blinks, his eyes damp and his voice cracking just enough to show his sorrow beneath his strength. “This is my last night. After this, the dream will be gone— and I’ll be gone with it.”

Arthur’s anguish is a physical cracking in his chest, like ribs snapping and his heart exploding because,  _ gods,  _ he can’t do this without Merlin. He can’t wake up to a world where every last remnant of Merlin is gone.

He can’t mourn him again. He can’t live with the same regrets, so—

“I don’t hate you,” Arthur rushes to say because he can’t let Merlin die with any doubt of Arthur’s feelings. “I never truly hated you.”

Merlin smiles. “I know.”

“You seem to know me better than I know myself,” Arthur says with a breath that could almost be called laughter. It becomes a sigh, though, when he looks back up at Merlin. “Do you know, then, that I love you?”

Merlin’s smile grows, brighter than the sun and more powerful than any spell.

“I don’t know,” he says, teasing. “Maybe you should tell me. Just in case.”

And isn’t it ridiculous? That on the eve of his true death, Merlin can still make Arthur smile?

“I love you,” Arthur breathes, pulling Merlin to him until they’re chest to chest— and, even then, it’s not close enough. He wants Merlin written on his body, sketched over him; he needs to be so close that he can’t remember what it’s like to be free of Merlin, to be on his own. 

Merlin leans in towards him as if to fulfill his unspoken request. His breath warms Arthur’s lips. 

“And I love you,” he murmurs. “No matter where I go after this, no matter what I am, I will always love you.”

And what is Arthur meant to do if not kiss him, knowing it may be the last time?

A pair of lips meet his own, halfway, and Arthur doesn’t know why any man fears the corruption of magic when it’s so much easier to become addicted to the feeling of something like  _ this _ . A feeling where the world stops spinning, where his heart stops beating, where everything fades only to Merlin and the sensation of his existence beneath Arthur’s hands. As soon as the kiss starts, neither of them seem to be able to get enough; they both know that they don’t have long.

Arthur’s hands sling around Merlin’s waist to pull him closer and Merlin’s hands tangle in Arthur’s hair. They barely pull away to breathe because how can air be more important than this? When Merlin breathes Arthur’s name against his mouth, it’s all the breath Arthur needs. 

It’s a kiss made to last, even if nothing else in this world can.

When Merlin pulls back, it’s with kiss-swollen lips and reddened cheeks, bright eyes and messy hair.

When Merlin pulls back, the sun is still setting and Arthur doesn’t want to know how much time has passed.

“I found out where we are,” Merlin says, still caught in Arthur’s grip. Arthur squeezes briefly to show he’s listening, not trusting his voice. “Arthur, this is Camelot.”

“What?” Arthur asks. He turns, facing the sun and the forest with Merlin beside him. Merlin leans into him, nudging them both to sit.

“It’s Camelot,” he repeats. “A Camelot without a king or castle. Camelot as it was before us and how it will be after everything ends.”

“I don’t understand,” Arthur says, furrowing his eyebrows together. “If it’s Camelot without the kingdom, then why are we here?”

“I don’t know,” Merlin says, and Arthur can hear the smile in his voice. “But I think it’s beautiful, whatever the reason.”

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees after a moment. “I suppose it is.”

And they sit together under the never ending sunset, and Arthur watches the place that will be his kingdom— that, perhaps, was his kingdom. Past and future can seem so similar, and Arthur can see the etchings of both in this world. 

A Once and Future Kingdom, he realizes, for a supposed Once and Future King.

He laughs to himself, smiling at Merlin’s curious look.

And then he brings him in for another kiss, holding Merlin to him until he knows it’s time to wake.

<><><> <><><> <><><>

In the months that follow, Arthur rolls the magic back into his body to keep it from prying eyes. He meets with druids and other magic users periodically, seeking someone to teach him how to tame the chaos that seems to want to unfurl each time he thinks too long on Merlin or his father or any other thing that stresses him. They’re all helpful guides but Arthur never keeps with one teacher for too long. The one good teacher he had was a servant in a dream, a sorcerer with eyes the color of the sky.

Gaius visits a few times, the longest lasting mentor Arthur has. They don’t really speak but, when they’re walking the courtyard together, Arthur knows Gaius can feel his melancholy. Often, that’s when he’ll tell Arthur something else about what Merlin had done. He talks of dragons and assassins and all the times he’s saved Arthur’s life. Arthur doesn’t really speak during these conversations, afraid he’ll ruin it with some misplaced word.

One night, Gaius brings another book to Arthur’s chambers. A book of spells, of magic. He doesn’t say anything as he sets it down, and Arthur doesn’t ask him about Merlin’s handwriting on the pages when he flips through it later.

The day after that, though, Arthur goes to Morgana.

“Let’s talk about the real reasons neither of us have been getting any sleep,” he says, and Morgana smiles.

Arthur tells her about Merlin’s spell, about his gift and the way it sits beneath Arthur’s skin like a storm waiting to break. Morgana tells him about her dreams, about her prophecies and how she’s been terrified that she’s either alone or insane.

It’s a conversation that lasts hours longer than Arthur had planned. But it’s also a conversation that leads to something much more important.

As king— crowned and accepted the same day he exiled his father, incapable of truly killing him— Arthur begins a plan to bring magic back to Camelot. He’s sure Uther is frothing at the mouth about it somewhere in whatever kingdom he’s sought refuge in, but this only inspires Arthur to fight harder for the law to change.

The knights from the battle are the first to side with him, aside from Morgana and Guinevere and Gaius. They come to him as a unit on the training fields one day and swear their loyalty to him. And, as they kneel before him, Arthur knows that no kingdom and no army could ever take Camelot from him— not so long as he has the love of his knights.

He appoints Morgana as his advisor, an act that leaves many of Uther’s initial council reeling. All it takes is one session with Morgana’s sharp tongue, however, and many of the older men find themselves incapable of disagreeing with her.

The fight for magic’s freedom becomes easier when Morgana publicly announces her connection with magic. Arthur doesn’t find out about her plans to do so until after it’s spread over half the kingdom but, somehow, he can’t find it in him to scold her for it. He imagines the way she carries herself after— lighter, happier, safer— has something to do with it.

“You should do the same,” Guinevere tells Arthur one night, the two of them quietly searching for more books on magic in the castle’s library. “I mean, people already know but it’s just rumors right now. It might mean something more if you actually talk to them about it.”

Arthur doesn’t respond to her right away but he smiles and, he knows, that smile is enough.

Two days later, Arthur confirms to the kingdom that he has magic. It’s met with a recoil from the firmer followers of his father but, he’s almost surprised to find, there’s more curiosity from everyone than there is fear. He answers what he can, explaining what it feels like and how he knows it’s not evil. He tells them what he can do, what he wants to do, what magic will help him to do.

He doesn’t tell them he got it from Merlin, though. It’s silly but he mostly just wants Merlin kept to himself.

As two of the most respected people in the kingdom, Morgana and Arthur use their stories to start persuading others on the plan to remove the ban on magic. There’s still resistance— Arthur imagines there will always be resistance— but that doesn’t mean there’s no progress. 

Over time, people start to listen. Things start to change.

Arthur’s magic is one of those things.

It stabilizes with each day, his fear of it fading as he becomes accustomed to the feeling of it inside his skin. It’s still a storm but Arthur can control how much of that storm is let out when he uses it. Most days, it’s like air between his fingers. 

Still, it never truly feels like he’s the one controlling it. The magic is alive, he knows, and he often finds himself wondering how much of Merlin was left behind in it. In the times that the candles go out right before bed, when stains in his shirts clean themselves, when he turns his back and the bed is made when he faces it again. He’d laugh at the idea of magic doing chores if he didn’t feel so strongly that it’s simply doing this because it’s what it’s used to. A habit it can’t give up.

Gaius tells Arthur he can help him keep the magic in check, keep it from spilling out like that. When Gaius says this, the magic rests on Arthur’s shoulder like a hand keeping him in place— supporting him in whatever he chooses to do.

Arthur declines Gaius’ offer. It’s harmless work, after all.

When Arthur’s alone, he lets the magic surround him. On the best days, it feels like Merlin— like his breath over Arthur’s skin, like his fingertips seeking out wounds, like his voice declaring that he’ll protect Arthur no matter the cost.

On the worst days, it just reminds Arthur of what he’s lost. More times than he’d like to count, Morgana has found him alone in his room, staring blankly at a wall and asking for Merlin to say something. She never says anything about these moments, just guides him to bed and takes care of his duties for that day.

It’s when Arthur sleeps, though, that it hurts the most.

For a few weeks, he dreams of that meadow but it’s always just a dream. A memory of a place that his subconscious conjures up without caring to get the details right. He’s always waiting for the sound of wind through the grass, for the warmth of sun against his back.

He’s always waiting for Merlin to show up. He never does.

Over time, even these dreams fade. They come less frequently as he’s forced to focus on other things. On the repeal of the magic ban, on meetings with the druids, on everything a king should be or do. He hardly notices when that meadow fades from his mind entirely, left only as a place he’ll think of whenever he sees a certain flower on Camelot’s roads.

Six months after becoming king, Arthur stands in one of the castle’s towers and looks out across the kingdom. His kingdom. 

Well, not quite his kingdom. Because it’s Morgana’s kingdom every time she convinces someone else to support magic. It’s Guinevere’s kingdom every time she shows kindness to Arthur, to Morgana, to a new servant too frightened to help. Gaius’ kingdom as he treats patients, as he teaches Morgana and Arthur, as he starts to speak up about freedom for sorcerers.

It’s Merlin’s kingdom, too. Arthur can’t ever pretend it’s not.

He watches the sunset over the land, brilliant shades of rose and red stretching over the sky like spilled ink over parchment. It pours over trees and grass and buildings and people, coating everything in the golden shade of something he could never understand— something quite like magic.

If Arthur looks only at the sunset colors of the sky, he imagines he can feel Merlin watching it beside him. 

“You’ll be the greatest king Camelot has ever known,” Merlin would say.

And Arthur would laugh, not really knowing how to respond. 

Now, though, on his own, Arthur smiles softly and leans towards the setting sun.

“All of this is because of you,” he whispers. He doesn’t know what he believes about life after death, but he knows he believes Merlin can hear him. “None of it would have been possible without you.”

Magic cools along his spine, a calming presence pressed to the back of his neck like a kiss from a lover.

As Arthur looks over at the sunset— at the scene that looks almost just like the last dream he and Merlin shared— he smiles.

He swears he feels the magic smiling, too— the same shining grin Merlin always gave.

It’s Arthur’s and Merlin’s kingdom, after all. 

Arthur shuts his eyes and wishes for Merlin to see it, too.


	8. Epilogue

“Go on, Arthur,” Morgana says, tugging Arthur further into the festivities around them. “The celebration was your idea. You might as well take part in it.”

Arthur scowls, trying and failing to free his arm from her. 

“The celebration was for other people,” he says. “Not me.”

Morgana simply rolls her eyes. “Spending time with your kingdom will be far more beneficial than moping around in your room. Don’t make me force you.”

“You’re already forcing me,” Arthur grumbles but he doesn’t put up too much of a fight when Morgana all but shoves him into the crowds.

“Someone needs to oversee things from a closer level, anyway,” Morgana says with that smug smirk of hers.

Arthur narrows his eyes. “I thought that’s what you were doing.”

“Well, sure, it’s what I said I would do,” Morgana says, shrugging as if the hours of meetings they’ve had about this day meant nothing. “But Mordred wanted to  _ experience  _ the festivities, not supervise it. So, I’m meeting up with Iseldir and we’re going to have fun. I suggest you try to do the same.”

Arthur sighs. “Fine. But I still expect you to write an official report on how this goes.”

“Yes, of course,” Morgana says with a soft sigh of her own. “Now, go. Have fun. It’s what this day is for, right?”

“It’s—” But Morgana’s gone before Arthur can correct her on his reasoning for the new celebration. The Day of Magic.

A day chosen specifically because, a year ago, it was the day Merlin was killed.

A month or so back, Arthur had realized that the anniversary of Merlin’s death was arriving and it had sent his magic into a chaotic spin he hadn’t had in months. Papers went flying, dishes fell over, windows cracked— and Arthur sat in the middle of it, heaving for breath because, gods, it had almost been a year.

A few days after that, he entered a council meeting with a new idea to help him forget the pain— or, at least, to make up for it.

With the help of Morgana, Guinevere, Lancelot and a few other knights he’d brought in over the past year, Arthur created a new festival for the people to celebrate. The Day of Magic— a day for sorcerers and druids and anyone else with magic to share the beauty of it with everyone else, a day for those without such abilities to wander the kingdom and delight in the wonders they’re shown.

Arthur shakes his head and turns to face the festivities around him. The past months have exhausted him but, already, the smiles and laughter of his people draw him further into the crowds.

He walks through the marketplace— the vendors and booths have been changed into spaces for those with magic to sell their own charms and trinkets, healing potions and other offers of services. A rather large group of people stand around a young woman as she promises to glance into the future for those with the coin to buy it. Nearby, two men help a couple of knights put shields and protections over their armor. At first, Arthur notes all this as though he plans to write that report he’d pestered Morgana about; before long, however, he simply finds himself caught in the feeling of literal magic in the air. Sparking slightly against his skin, laughing its way through throngs of people, weaving into the sky as it's released again and again from every magician’s hand.

Once, Arthur might have been wary about such obvious displays of this thing that’s tried to take his life so many times. Now, though, he’s almost forgotten what that fear feels like.

From further down, he hears someone say his name. An eyebrow raised, he follows the voice.

“Lives depended on King Arthur’s decision that day,” a familiar druid boy is saying to a group of children near the gates of the city, a makeshift stage for puppets between him and them. “Could he go against his father and the kingdom’s strictest rule?”

The children lean forward, eyes wide as though the outcome of the tale isn’t obvious. Arthur smiles to himself, watching with his own curiosity.

The druid boy— the druid from the cells, from the armory, from that time Arthur fell asleep without wanting to— glances at Arthur briefly, a smile in the corner of his lips as he nods his acknowledgement to him. Arthur nods back, gesturing for him to continue the story.

“Afraid that his son would act against him, Uther tricked Arthur into falling into a deep sleep.” The druid’s hands dance through the air without touching the puppets, small wooden dolls that move with the will of magic across the stage. “But, when Arthur awoke, he knew what he had to do.”

Arthur watches as the rest of the story unfolds, put together from the bits of details he’d shared with the druids upon their release. He hadn’t told them about Merlin’s spell or the terror he felt about having his own magic, incapable of giving voice to such vulnerable words. 

Besides, having such feigned certainty over his own actions makes for a much better puppet show, anyway.

The painted dolls act out a tamer version of what happened, protecting the children from the fact that lives were still lost that day— that Arthur was too late to save everyone. Arthur’s speeches, too, are shorter, easier for the young ones to understand. They seem more captivated by Arthur’s reveal of magic, anyway, laughing and giggling when the druid boy creates a miniature version of the windstorm, shaking his handmade props and causing the stage to tremble ever so slightly. 

“Once the prisoners were all safe, Arthur declared himself king,” the boy says, placing a small crown on the puppet version of Arthur’s head. It’s a bit lopsided but the children cheer all the same. “That was the beginning of our freedom from Uther’s rule over magic.”

One child raises her hand, a dark-haired girl with freckles down her arm. “And that’s when he said magic could come back?”

“It wasn’t easy, but yes. King Arthur worked very hard to undo what his father did. He took away the laws saying magic was illegal,” the boy answers, leading to an awkward blush on Arthur’s face. “Today is a celebration of that. Today is proof that magic has finally returned to Camelot.”

At the words, the hair on the back of Arthur’s neck lifts, the sensation trailing down his spine and across his arms like lightning struck too close for comfort. He folds his arms over his chest, running his thumbs over the little goosebumps in an attempt to ease them away. If he reacts like this every time someone says something about his destiny, it’s going to get old rather quickly.

Still, though, the feeling remains.

His first story finished, the druid boy lets the puppets fall after their last bow, turning to start looking for some other characters to introduce.

It’s when he looks up, though, his eyes towards Arthur, that he freezes. There’s a familiar look in his eyes, something Arthur’s seen him do before.

“My Lord,” the boy breathes.

Arthur’s arms fall to his side as his frowns. The druids don’t often use such titles with him, typically sticking to King Arthur or something as equally informal. 

“What are you—”

Arthur’s cut off when one of the puppets on the stage begins to move. A certain blond-haired doll, a crown still wrapped around its head as it’s lifted into the air and pulled past Arthur. Someone behind him, then; someone having some fun or playing some prank.

“The eyes are good and all,” someone says about the doll, and Arthur stills at the sound of the voice. A voice he hasn’t heard in nearly six months, a voice that can’t be here, a voice he’s never forgotten, a voice— “But I don’t think you made the waist or head big enough.”

Arthur turns, slowly, and the first thing he sees are eyes the color of a summer sky.

For a moment— for just a second— Arthur doesn’t realize why it means so much. His heart reacts before his mind does, reaching for the thing— for the person— he thought he’d never see again.

For a moment— for a heartbeat, for a breath— Arthur can only think of the smell of grass and the sound of wind through leaves. Isn’t that what that voice is for? Isn’t that where those eyes have always been? But the person before him takes a step forward, their smile so gentle it keeps Arthur from falling apart. Their lips move— and, gods, Arthur knows those lips, he knows that mouth— and they say Arthur’s name but he can’t hear it, can’t react to it, a heated branding iron placed to the inside of his chest and burning him from the inside out until all he wants to do is scream or cry or tear his own heart free because it’s breaking and mending and reshaping and yearning and he can’t move from where he stands, can’t move from this figure’s gaze.

His eyes can’t move from brilliant blues, flecks of gold that weren’t there before but look as though they belong. Arthur stops entirely— his heart, his breath, his pulse, his thoughts, his existence— and, then, he breaks.

If he loses his mind, let it be like this, he thinks.

Merlin smiles, seeming not at all concerned with how Arthur’s falling apart in front of him, his hands holding gently to the Arthur puppet. 

Arthur hears himself stagger forward, pulled towards Arthur in the same way that doll was— perhaps in a stronger way, in a more certain, in a way less understood than magic. 

“You’re only a dream,” he says.

And Merlin laughs. Gods, and Merlin  _ laughs _ and Arthur will never want for anything again, not with that sound so clear in his mind.

“That’s still probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he says, taking a step towards Arthur. There’s so little space between them. 

Merlin looks the same way he always does but, then, he doesn’t. He’s as hesitant as Arthur, Arthur notices, but still so certain; unsure of his own being but certain that, despite everything, this is where he should be.

“Then it’s a spell.” He reaches for Merlin, stopping close enough he can feel the warmth beneath his fingertips but still too afraid to go any further. “A charm someone slipped to me, or that potion Morgana practiced this morning. It’s an enchantment or—”

Merlin takes Arthur’s hand, lets it close the gap between them as he presses his cheek into his palm. His other hand reaches behind Arthur’s neck, that stupid doll swinging and brushing his back. There’s a small blush on Merlin’s cheeks, the same adoration that was in his eyes the first time they kissed.

“It’s not a dream or spell, Arthur. I promise,” he whispers so only Arthur can hear. His eyes shine with a mischief Arthur has missed. “Trust me, I’d know if you were cursed. It’s kind of my job.”

And it’s so stupid— it’s so Merlin— that Arthur can’t help but laugh even as a dampness coats his eyes. “But, then, how? Why?”

Merlin— gods,  _ Merlin _ — presses his forehead to Arthur’s.

“You brought magic back to Camelot,” he says softly. “I knew you would. I just didn’t know that it included me, too.”

And, oh. Oh, Arthur gets it. Because Merlin is magic and so Merlin was in his dreams. And Merlin is magic so he was always here, that brush beneath Arthur’s skin.

And Merlin is magic, so the prophecy always included him in the things Arthur would come to understand, to know, to return to life.

Arthur brings his other hand to Merlin’s cheek, cupping his face for no other reason than he can. He laughs again because he doesn’t know what else to do, tears streaking his cheeks as he holds Merlin— as he does the impossible, as he does something he thought he’d never do again. And Merlin’s the same, wrapping his arms fully around Arthur’s neck as he, too, gasps for breaths through something that could be laughter or sobs, something that could be Arthur’s name, something that could be a declaration of love. And his throat is clean of scars or marks, clean of anything that has ever hurt him before. 

Arthur’s throat fills with emotion, a sore knot blocking every word he could say to Merlin— but, it’s alright. He’ll have time to say those later. Merlin’s here and, somehow, Arthur knows he’s not leaving ever again.

So there’s nothing Arthur needs to say. Not right now. Not yet.

Later, he’ll drag Merlin around the festival like an overeager child, ignoring the teasing he’ll get about how he used to call Merlin silly for such excitement. He’ll show him every bit of magic now embedded in Camelot, watch as Merlin’s eyes wet again at the freedom he never had the chance to have. He’ll introduce him to druids and new knights, to sorcerers and sorceresses who’ve heard of Merlin’s greatness and will stumble for words of gratitude when they meet.

Later, he’ll watch as Guinevere holds Merlin in a tight embrace for what will feel like hours. He’ll listen as Morgana cries and explains that she tried to save him, that she tried to change Uther’s mind.

Arthur will wait outside Gaius’ door and try not to break at the sound of their tearful reunion.

But all of that will come later.

What comes now is the way Arthur pulls Merlin to him, their lips meeting in a messy kiss of smiles and tears and promises of a future together. Arthur doesn’t think too hard on the fact that he can do this now— that he can kiss Merlin, that he can hold him, touch him, feel him— away from that meadow, that dream, that place that was only theirs. Merlin presses back into Arthur and the kiss deepens as they both realize this is the first true kiss they’ve had in this world. 

In the kingdom they built together.

Merlin’s going to love the new Camelot, Arthur thinks. 

And Arthur’s going to love Merlin for every next second of their lives.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story and the art that went with it! If so, hearing your thoughts in the comments would mean a lot! Thank you!!


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